


Remember Me

by confused_pandbear



Category: Free!
Genre: F/M, haru x gou, harugou
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-18 13:32:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18121616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/confused_pandbear/pseuds/confused_pandbear
Summary: [M-Rated] Matsuoka Gou wakes up in a hospital with more than just a bump on the head. Unable to recall the last three years of her life, Gou struggles to piece together the memories of her forgotten past - including those of her husband, Nanase Haruka, whom she has no memory of whatsoever.





	1. Past

* * *

She could hear the beach.

And it was as if they had been washed up on its shore; like twin sea shells sleeping with abandon.

She felt him smile against her neck, his fingertips brush aside her bangs.

"Kou…"

He whispered, softly.

"…It's time to wake up."

* * *

"Mrs. Nanase? Mrs. Nanase, can you hear me?"

The voice had changed, Gou thought.

It was no longer soothing, but disturbingly urgent.

"Mrs. Nanase!"

She wasn't with him anymore.

In his place was chaos; the morning glow of her alternate reality obliterated by harsh light fixtures crooning above her on a cold, metal bed.

At least four sets of hands were touching her, strapping her down and cutting off her clothes.

They were shouting at each other from all directions, using words that she only half-understood from basic first aid class and TV hospital dramas.

"What have we got here?" came a harsh, clinical assessment.

"Female, twenty-six years old, car accident," another answered, the voice accompanied by the snapping of latex against skin. "Internal bleeding, undiagnosed head injury…"

"…Pupils dilated, unresponsive…"

"…she's tachycardic. Someone get me large-bore, sixteen gauge IV…"

There was unexpected stabbing pain in the crook of her arm, and though she tried to cry out, her parted lips could not produce a single sound.

Her whole body thrashed as compensation, fighting her intruders off until the noxious liquid began to circulate her veins and her muscles went lax, lulling her into a deep and dreamless sleep.

"Shh, its okay, Mrs. Nanase, you're going to be okay…" a female voice stroked at the top of her had.

Mrs. Nanase? Who is that...?

Gou thought, as her eyelids slid shut.

…Are they talking about me?

* * *

When life deals you a bad hand, it is far too easy to turn to the past and pick at your mistakes.

'If only I have started studying earlier,' you'd say.

'If only I had told him before it was too late.'

In Nanase Haruka's case, it was as simple as choosing to stay at the office an hour later than usual.

_If only I had left on time…_

He thought, sprinting up the hospital steps.

_…If only I had driven her myself._

* * *

__

The first and only thing Gou could recall after the accident, was waking up in a hospital bed feeling like she'd been hit by a truck – and then nearby nurse telling her that she was there for that very reason.

Naturally, she had a thousand and one questions that needed answering.

What had happened?

How did she get here?

And why did her head hurt so much?!

Strangely enough, the staff treating her simply smiled through her concerns.

They would tell her, in an almost patronising way, not to "worry about the details" and to "focus on her recovery," always so politely, always sympathetic.

And though she appreciated the sentiment, there was something about the way they studied her in between questions, the way they would pause and exchange a look between themselves, made her believe that the answers that she was providing weren't exactly the ones that they were looking for.

Her doctor – a young, serious looking man – reassured her and her worrying mother constantly that everything was looking 'great,' that she was 'right on track' for a 'full recovery.'

Her tests had came back positive, and she was still able to walk, talk and recite the alphabet correctly – simple tasks that should have brought some sense of relief but instead, left her with daunting impression that he was just easing her with the formalities before he dropped a bombshell.

"The results of your cognitive tests however, have…raised some concerns," he finally admitted.

Gou nodded, neck stiff and unknowingly holding her breath throughout his explanation.

According to an eyewitness account, the roads had been icy on the day of her accident, and a driver in front of her had lost control and caused her to break her own car sharply.

Although her actions had managed to avoid the hazard in front of her, Gou's decision did not quite register in time for the driver behind her, who ended up colliding with the back of her car at full speed.

It was a miracle in itself that she was alive, and with very little physical injuries.

"…It seems as if your executive skills were not affected either," her doctor continued. "Our tests show that you still have full control of your motor movements, speech, vision and other, basic functions…"

Gou inwardly groaned throughout his medical jargon.

She did not care for what was not wrong with her, when there was something that was not quite right.

"…the good news is that I don't see any major cognitive problems in your short term memory either. In fact, we are all glad that the outcome of your injuries are relatively minor considering the severity of the accident–"

"–But what is it?" Gou spoke over him, with obvious impatience: "what's the bad news?"

The young doctor hesitated, stalling his explanation by folding his red-rimmed glasses and cleaning the lenses with the corner of his white coat.

He looked to her mother – a fleeting exchange, irritating Gou more than it should have, because it reminded her that she was still painfully uninformed: like there was a secret that everyone knew and she was the only one being kept in the dark.

"The issue seems to lie in your long term memory store," he explained. "We have noticed a disruption in your ability to either retrieve memories, or damage in the part of the brain that holds them..."

He spoke so clinically that it took a moment for Gou to register what he was saying, and even longer to make any sense of them.

A disruption in her ability to – what?

Without a reaction from her, he continued:

"…At this moment, we are hoping that it is just the former, that your memories will return to you naturally with time. Now, I know this is a shock, but retrograde amnesia is not uncommon after a severe head injury..."

She must have made a face at the word 'amnesia' because the doctor paused at her change of expression, studying the mixture of shock and bemusement carefully.

"...Gou-chan?"

She startled, the overly familiar address gathering the rest of her awareness.

"Do you understand what I am saying?" Dr. Ryugazaki said. "Going from our tests – from speaking your family and friends – you seem to have absolutely no memory of the past three years of your life."

* * *

Of all the reactions that she could have produced – Gou had laughed out aloud.

They had to be wrong – she said to her mother, to her doctor, repeatedly – they had to be talking about someone else.

She had insisted so until the very end – until a man she had never seen in her entire life came barging into her hospital room, demanding to see her.

She heard a nurse's voice panic: "Mr. Nanase, please understand, in the interest of your wife's recovery–"

"–Kou!" he called without suffix, pushing his way through the hoard of medical staff and ignoring their cautioning as he came to her side.

He pulled her into a fierce embrace, irrespective of the intricate network of wires that were connected to her; "you're awake, thank god…" he whispered, reassuring himself if anyone at all.

He was breathing against her neck, his large hands smoothing over her bandaged hair, her shoulders, and her back, so swept up in his own relief that he did not feel her try to lean away from his touch.

"...I was so scared," he breathed. "Rei wouldn't let me see you. I thought...I thought..."

"…Excuse me," Gou began, the formality of her tone throwing him off guard.

The unknown man drew back from her; blue eyes glassy and wide and unable to ignore how the distance he had created between them seemed to set her more at ease.

"I'm sorry to be rude, but–"

Gou blinked.

"–who are you?"

* * *

He was thrust away from her the second his grip slackened, in a flurry of panicked hands, apologies and assorted explanations for both confused sides of the party.

Dr. Ryugazaki pulled the man aside and out of her line of sight, thinking that by simply drawing the curtain divider between the beds would block out their heated conversation.

"Haruka-senpai, please calm down and listen to me," she heard him say. "We…we think Gou-chan has post-traumatic amnesia…"

"…the collision of her head with the windshield has caused some swelling in the brain tissue…"

"…memory loss can be a side effect…"

"…it could be temporary, it could be permanent…"

"…no telling at this stage."

Gou trembled in her bed, suddenly registering the room drop several degrees and hugged herself against the truth they so easily disclosed to a stranger.

She had no idea who he was and who he was to her, but the man seemed so adamant that he knew her – not only that, but that she belonged to him – recalling his hands gripping at her shoulders so tightly, she feared he was about to shake her.

"But how can she get her memories back…?"

She heard him demand, with an abruptness that made everyone in the room filch.

"…How can I make her remember me?"

Following the morning's assessment, Gou requested the rest of the day free from tests and visits, and thankfully, no one objected.

"Take all the time you need," Dr. Ryugazaki had said, and escorting the man out of her ward, Gou at long last allowed herself to think.

She was sure there was no word to describe it: the feeling of being dislocated not in place, but in the very fabric of time.

She had woken up in a hospital bed and was, all of a sudden, three years older and married.

A shudder worked up her spine at the thought.

Her mother explained that his name was Nanase Haruka, and it rolled off of her tongue like an unfinished sentence.

But before she could contemplate the ending, an attending nurse entered her room with a stale looking lunch that was promptly ignored.

"You must have a lot of questions," she stated diplomatically.

"Just a few," Gou grumbled from under her sheets.

"I've brought you today's newspaper," the nurse remained undeterred by her tone. "And a few of your belongings that we've been keeping for you as well." She suggested: "Maybe looking through them will help trigger some of your memories?"

She picked at the pile on her bedside table when the curiosity got the better of her.

The date on the newspaper confirmed the time skip, and though most of her clothes were ruined beyond repair, the accident team had managed to salvage her handbag from the car and most of her belongings inside of it.

Intact, there was a wallet, a small cosmetics bag and cell phone that definitely wasn't cute the flip phone kind she had owned three years ago.

It was a smart-phone-type thing, that complained with every incorrect four digit code she tried – her birthday, her mother's birthday, her brothers and her cat's – before it locked itself off from any further attempts and asked her to contact her service provider for further assistance.

Frustrated, Gou tossed the device back into her handbag and fished out the next clue as distraction: and a transparent plastic bag with, what she assumed to be, the jewellery she had been wearing during the accident.

There were some pieces that she recognised, like a charm bracelet she had owned since she was a teen, but caught up in the knotted strands of silver chain were two, beautiful rings she had never seen before.

Gingerly, Gou emptied contents of the bag; the hospital light glancing blindingly off the sapphire and diamond ring that fell into her palm.

It was an engagement ring – she was sure of it – and the white gold band with it was her wedding ring.

Their immediate beauty temporarily surpassed their implication because not long after peeking around her ward for any lingering staff or spectators, Gou threaded the diamond onto her finger and admired the piece at arm's length.

She let out a shaky breath.

It was a stunningly, perfect fit.

The almost blissful moment was short lived when her hospital door swung open and her supposed husband himself appeared on the other side, along with a purple haired doctor who had been treating her.

Mortified, Gou tugged the ring off of her finger so fast that it flew off the bed, bounced twice on the bleach white tiles before it went rolling by his feet.

Without a word or greeting, Haruka retrieved and handed the ring back to her, his gaze so penetrating that Gou hesitated before sealing it back in the plastic bag.

She caught his change in expression, the way he averted his eyes as if he couldn't physically bring himself to look at her at that moment.

He looked so hurt by her actions that she felt the need to apologise.

"Please, don't take it personally," she attempted a broken explanation. "I don't feel as if I deserve to wear it right now. If that makes any sense? I just don't – feel married at all…"

The man regarded her with a curious look on his face, assessing her answer with such intense scrutiny that made her blush.

He did not need to speak but she could feel his frustration; it channelled into her and melded with her own.

Because the way he looked at her was as if he were expecting her to say something that he would put him at ease, like there were a script running somewhere and she was the only one who hadn't read it yet.

Thankfully, the purple haired doctor spoke up in their silence.

"I have briefed on Haruka-sen – your husband," he dithered, "on your...unique situation. He understands the extent of your injuries, and the impact it has had on your ability to retrieve your recent memories..."

Gou nodded, eyes trained diligently on the doctor and not on the man who called himself her husband.

There was a difference between 'fully understanding' and 'fully accepting' the situation, and she was sure like herself, that he had yet achieved the latter.

"...in light of this, we've been discussing with your mother and Rin-san how to–" he paused, choosing his words carefully. "–tackle your release."

"My release?" Gou felt her forehead wrinkle.

"Of course, I'd like to keep you here for the time being – to monitor your recovery in these early stages," Rei continued, despite her questioning. "But it's more than likely that your memories will return once you're home, in familiar surroundings..."

Unconsciously, he looked to her husband, and it was clear what he was implying: that the best course of action was to send her home with him.

"Anyways, I'll let you discuss this with your husband and your family," Dr. Ryugazaki said as he took his leave, and as he passed him, placed a hand on her Haru's shoulder in a comforting gesture.

It was obvious to Gou that they knew each other; later finding out that they had attended university with her brother who, she had found out from her mother, was also fond of her new husband, the both of them insisting above everything else that she return to her marital home once she was discharged.

It was as if she did not have a say in the matter, and even though she tried to suppress it, Gou began to dread the day.

She did not mean to feel this way towards him, honestly.

She liked Nanase-san – as far as liking strangers went.

He clearly cared for her, and for his sake only, wished that that unwelcome stirring in her stomach would cease whenever the thought of going home with him dawned upon her.

Gou was unable to differentiate the feeling. It was something in between fear and excitement.

Like being strapped into a seat of a roller coaster ride, and knowing that there was no turning back now.

* * *

He was nice – if not a little quiet – and for the week that followed her hospitalisation, never failed to make a visit every day despite the amount of staff that asked him to leave, with reason that he was making her uncomfortable.

He did not speak much, simply sitting by her bed during visiting hours and observing her during her check ups – staring as if he were waiting for something in her brain to click.

He was adamant that his presence would make her remember, always patient with her questions, which were few and far between because Gou would never miss the way he winced whenever she asked him the simplest of things; like how long had they been together and if they lived together and where.

"What do – what do you do for a living?" she had asked one afternoon, desperate to make conversation whenever they were left alone.

"I'm a photographer," he said, with no inclination to elaborate.

Gou nodded, attempting to appear contemplative.

She didn't know the first thing about photography.

"What," she then asked, feeling incredibly stupid, "do I do for a living?"

* * *

That was the most unsettling part for Gou – to have someone she considered a stranger answer questions on her behalf – faster and more coherent than she ever could.

Details like her birthday, her home address, her phone number and that of her general practitioner, were answered by him before she could produce the response herself.

Even when a helpful nurse offered to make them both a drink, her husband ordered himself a still water and asked her with a look of what she wanted.

Her mouth had only half formed the word before he answered:

"Tea for Kou," he said, spinning his dark head back around to the nurse. "Half."

The nurse looked unsure, "half…?" she dragged the word for him to elaborate.

He didn't, and Gou had no idea what he meant either.

"Half milk?" the nurse suggested, but Haruka shook his head with the slightest trace of a smile curving at his lips.

"No sugar, no milk," he explained, "half as in you should only brew her half a cup because she never finishes it."

He looked to her with brows raised like they were meant to share a private joke with hers, but instead her face mirrored something like terror and after that, Haru didn't answer questions for her anymore.

Along with her new husband, it seemed as if Gou also had an entirely new social circle; judging by flowers delivered to her room with get-well-soon cards signed from names she barely recognised.

Her visiting hours were popular, with her mother arriving with scrap books and picture albums for her to look though, and a group of what she assumed were now her friends, filing into her room whenever they had the chance.

"So you really don't remember anything?" a yellow haired boy named Hazuki Nagisa asked her for the nth time. "You don't remember the time we went to the summer festival and ate that amazing squid paella? Or when we took a boat out to the beach with the guys, and swam between the islands?!"

Gou shook her head regretfully, and Nagisa gasped:

"But Rei-chan almost died!"

"Nagisa-kun!"

He was close with her husband, along with a tall gentleman named Tachibana Makoto who was also part of her visiting party, greeting her so kindly and so sincerely that she felt terrible that she had no idea who in the world he was to her.

She noticed that her brother greeted them like old friends whenever their visits coincided, which left Gou trying desperately to recall her him ever mentioning their names in her recallable past – giving up soon after remembering that details of her brothers personal life were always few and far between.

But she could tell that they were all very close: by the way they spoke and left her unable to contribute without context, leaving her feeling like an outsider even though it was apparent that she was once a part of their jokes and anecdotes too.

"Hey Gou-chan, do you remember the name of that album you were gonna lend me?" Nagisa would occasionally let her amnesia slip his mind.

Gou blinked at him, a mixture of baffled and exasperated. "No, I don't, sorry…"

Nagisa pouted, aggravatingly, "well, if you do happen to get your memories back and remember–"

"–you'll be the first person I call, alright?!" she snapped without thinking, followed by an embarrassment from having yelled at someone she had basically just met.

But going by his unfazed reaction, and the way that everyone laughed, Gou figured that their relationship had that kind of dynamic.

Haruka was always quiet during these visits, Gou realising that he was usually always so quiet and withdrawn regardless of his company, only contributing when coaxed by Makoto or when mediating an excitable Nagisa causing ruckus in her ward.

And in the moments where she felt out of place, she would catch herself watching for his subtle expressions, and studying his handsome profile for a reaction.

Haru was tall – not too tall – but at least a foot taller than her.

He was muscular but lean, easily detectable whenever he wore short sleeved shirts that strained with the bulge of his biceps.

His hair was dark and straight and fell across his forehead; his chin sharp and his nose tall, and he owned these expressive blue eyes that brought all of his features together and made her insides quiver whenever he laid that searching gaze of his on her.

He caught her stare and Gou ducked her head and sunk into mattress bed a little further.

Yes.

Very handsome indeed.

She just wished he would smile little more.

She was sure he would be even more handsome when he did.

Because for reasons she was unable to explain, Gou could not bear the sadness reflected in his eyes whenever he looked at her.

* * *

She thought that Haru was out of earshot; but he was standing in the shadow on the other side of her hospital room door, listening to her tearful voice say:

"…but I want to go home with you, okaa-san…"

"…I'm sorry Gou, but 'home' is with him now."

* * *

"We're home."

Haru held open the door, and followed her every move with careful eyes.

Expecting some sensation of familiarity, Gou hovered in the empty space between the hallway and the living room of their apartment, and waited to be drawn to anything in particular.

A side of the sofa she would to curl up into to watch TV.

A spot in front of the electric fireplace where she would settle and get into a good book.

She looked around, and waited.

Nothing.

It was a funny feeling, being like a guest in your own home.

"How long have we been married again?" she asked, too stunned by her surroundings to be ashamed.

Haruka replied, watching for her reaction: "a little over five months."

A little under half a year, Gou translated in her head. Enough time to make her mark, to make the place her own and yet, she couldn't see herself living here at all.

Where was she here? Where was her mess, her picture frames, her thrift store trinkets and half drunken mugs of tea?

The apartment was as bare and as clinical as her hospital room, decorated with neutrals and of pale blues and furnished to the bare but functional minimum.

Gou had never felt more out of place in her entire life.

"It'll take some time," Haruka reminded her, but after the first week of living together, Gou grew more and more impatient at how long exactly it would take.

They did not exist together in the way she imagined a husband and wife would do.

Most of the time, it felt like they were tiptoeing around each other; like two roommates who barely shared a language, managing only simple exchanges like what they wanted to eat for dinner and if they had slept well that night.

Haruka was trying, she had to admit.

He was markedly more comfortable in their apartment than she could ever be.

There were times where he strip down casually in front of her, wear little else but a blue apron as he cooked, whilst Gou would break into sprint between the shower and the locked bedroom door.

It just didn't make sense, but Gou knew that she was being unfair.

She was grateful that Haru was patient with her – gently reminding her on several occasions that she didn't need to ask permission to use the bathroom, and was always there to show her where things were kept and how the tv worked.

Gou could not deny that that her supposed husband did everything in his power to make her feel comfortable – to make her feel more 'at home.'

Even on days when she felt like locking herself up in her room and crying about it all, he gave her the space she needed – waiting patiently on the other side of her locked door and, unbeknownst to her, desperately wanting to hold her through her tears.

She did that a lot, during their first week.

She would cry for herself at first, because even though she was alive, that her cuts and bruises would heal with time, she had come out of her accident to an existence that did not belong to her and on her darkest days, that was as good as being dead.

But what surprised her the most was how often she found herself crying for Haru, though the reason for it was simple and unsurprising.

Because whenever he thought that she wasn't looking, Gou would almost always catch him staring at her in the corner of her eye – a faraway look, she always thought – as though he was not in the present, but in a place where Gou was curious of but could not follow.

It was as if he was wishing to god, to anyone that was listening, to bring his real wife back in place of this imposter.

* * *

A week after being discharged, Haru drove her back to the hospital for her follow up appointment, sadly reporting no change in her ability to retrieve her memories.

"I thought as much," Rei had stated unhelpfully, and advised the couple to be patient. Recovering them was going to be like a healing wound – that it doesn't happen overnight.

He sat them down in his office, and talked her and Haruka through the results of her tests against a backlit screen.

"Your MRI scans have revealed some swelling in several parts of your brain," he explained. "An 'acceleration-deceleration' injury, as we'd describe it. The organ was 'thrown around' during the accident, the impact with your skull causing some damage to your long term memory store..."

Astonishingly, Rei seemed delighted by these findings.

"...There have been cases like this before, but nothing quite so – selective," he completed, stars in his eyes. "I'd like to write a paper about it. It's absolutely fascinating!"

"I feel so special," Gou said mordantly, and the doctor cleared his throat, belatedly appreciating how insensitive his comment may have been.

"I'm sorry I can't provide any more insight," Rei apologised sincerely.. "But you must understand how unique your situation is, Gou-chan. There is no cure, no medicine you can take. And from similar cases I've read about, the best thing to do is to get you back into your normal routine."

* * *

He took her to their favourite restaurant for breakfast, where the chirpy young waitress greeted her with a friendly smile and asked her if she wanted "the usual," and Gou ate the most delicious pancakes she had ever tasted.

Feeling more proactive after her check up with Rei, Haruka and Gou spent the following days looking at photographs together, visiting her workplace and on walks in the park by their apartment.

Haru would try his best in relaying little anecdotes, conversations, even arguments they had, and though Gou grew more informed of their relationship as each day passed, she still felt very much of an outsider, listening to love story that did not belong to her.

Their third weekend together came around, and with and the medical 'ok' from Rei, Haruka decided to take Gou to their favourite and most frequented venue of them all.

The car pulled up outside the local swimming pool and Gou's immediate reaction was panic.

"W–What are we doing here?!"

Haru held the passenger door for her, with a look that meant something along the lines of: what do you think?

Sheepishly, she followed him into the centre, and was greeted by a middle aged man a star cut into his hair, standing behind the reception desk.

They must have been good friends before her accident, because she could barely get a word in edgeways.

"Ah, Gou-chan!" he greeted her boisterously. "I haven't seen ya in awhile! It's good to have you back! Only ever see Haru visiting by himself these days. How've ya been? How's everything going with the–?!"

Coach Sasabe stopped mid-sentence soon after registering a frantic Haru making a cutting gesture at his throat.

"–Huh?" he blinked, before coming to belated realisation. "Oh – shit – I mean, sorry!"

He slapped a hand over his forehead so comically that she couldn't help but smile.

"I completely forgot. Maybe I've got amnesia too!" Sasabe joked without taste, and though Gou had laughed as graciously as she could, Haru did not look best pleased.

Red faced, the coach issued her a pass and pointed her in the direction of the women's changing rooms.

"Have a good swim – Miss!" he blundered awkwardly.

Without her knowledge, Haruka was well prepared with an already packed a sports bag for her, handing it to Gou before shooting off into the direction of the pool.

Inside were toiletries and a fresh towel, and wrapped within that, a red bikini that looked as if it were made for bathing in the sun than for any kind of water activity.

Gou inspected what little material there was from arms length, and sighed through a tiny smile.

It was definitely something a boy would pick – especially one whose wife had permanently relegated him to the living room sofa.

Dressed (somewhat), Gou crouched at the poolside with the toes curled over the tiles and her elbows wound around her knees.

Haruka was already in the pool, limbs gracefully gliding through the water and looking the happiest he had been in the past few weeks.

She watched him in something like awe, because even though she used to spot her brother and support him in countless swim meets, she had never seen anyone look so peaceful in the water like Haruka did.

She would have been happy to sit and watch him in there the entire time, if it wasn't until he fell into a steady stride towards where she was sitting, mindful of her hesitance.

He stopped in front of her, regarding her expectantly, and Gou ducked her head in shame.

"I already told you. I can't swim."

"Yes you can," Haru insisted. "I taught you."

Gou blinked at him, "y–you did?"

He nodded, his chin dipping in the surface of the water.

"Yes, you're very good."

Gou shot him a skeptical look and his lips curved upwards guiltily.

"Okay, you're alright," he admitted. "But you're much better now than when we first started dating."

With that little persuasion, Gou agreed to get into the water at the very least, meeting Haru at shallow end of the pool.

As she lowered herself in, Haru supported her gently by the wrists – the first time he dared to touch her since the incident at the hospital – and with his touch, came a searing sensation on the surface of her skin, like being branded as a belonging.

He asked: "do you trust me?"

And for some unknown reason, Gou felt compelled to say yes.

He guided her into the water until she was submerged to the collarbones, and the harder it was for her toes to touch the bottom of the pool, the more panicked she became.

"Nanase-san…"

"Relax," Haru reassured her, "I've got you..."

To her surprise, when her feet could no longer touch that tiles, her legs began automatically kicking into a perfect breaststroke formation – shocking Gou so much that she spun her head around to look at her legs as if they were a different entity to her entirely.

"What – how?!" she gasped.

"Muscle memory," Haruka explained. "Rei told me about it. Even though your brain doesn't remember, your body does…"

His grasp on her relaxed.

"…I'm going to let go now."

Before Gou could protest, he was already lengths in the opposite direction, and certain that she would drown without his assistance, followed after him without a seconds thought.

Her legs began to kick and her arms began pedaling into crawl – the motion so innate that it took her a minute or two to realise that there was nothing to worry about – that she was absolutely fine.

"I'm swimming!" she repeated joyfully, to Haruka and anyone that was listening. "I'm swimming!"

The sport had always been her older brother's thing, where her whole family's focus on Rin took over to the point where no one thought to teach herself.

It didn't matter to her of course. She always supported her brother, even when he decided to take his training abroad, but she had always thought it would be nice to be able to jump into the pool with him one day, to visit the beach and swim in the ocean – without the aid of several embarrassing flotation devices.

Haruka passed her with a splash – he's so fast! she thought – and Gou laughed and took after him in a vain attempt to get him back.

It had seemed like a decade since remembered having so much fun, and at that moment, with him:

Gou had never felt so free.

He was waiting for her outside the lobby, when the sun had set and they were the last ones to leave the pool – apparently a regular occurrence according to their friend Coach Sasabe.

She came to his side, and as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Haru lifted a hand to graze his knuckles against her cheek, brushing away a strand of hair still damp from her shower.

"Ready to go home?" he asked.

Gou nodded enthusiastically, "sure!"

* * *

He sat close, shoulder to shoulder and occasionally providing context as she studied the snapshots of her misplaced memories.

"That was at our wedding," Haru said, with a light-hearted humour in his tone.

He had always sounded so serious that it both surprised and intrigued her.

"Rei got completely wasted on champagne and made an impromptu speech about the 'beauty' of marriage. The next picture is Rin and Nagisa dragging him off the stage…"

Gou could not imagine someone has straight laced and serious as Dr. Rygazaki to do such a thing, until she turned the page and saw just that, and in spite of everything, she laughed out loud and he laughed along with her.

Gou decided that she adored the sound of his laugh.

It made her heart lurch violently against her ribcage – tearing at her in a way she had no idea how to respond.

* * *

He wanted to kiss her, desperately.

Gou could tell, by the way his eyes would linger at her lips whenever he thought she wasn't looking.

The part that worried her the most was how desperately she wanted him to kiss her too.

It had been this way since that day at the pool: an increased desire to be near him, to hear him speak and find excuses to touch him – once coming across him fast asleep on the couch and wanting nothing more but to curl up by his side and feel the length of his body enveloping hers.

"That smells like mackerel," Gou had teased one night, entering the kitchen to offer him her help with dinner.

"Yes," Haru replied tenaciously. "I don't know if you remember, but you love mackerel."

Feeling completely natural with doing so, Gou came up next to him teased: "do I, now?"

And unexpected to them both, Haru swooped down and placed his lips against hers – a chaste, completely unconscious kiss – that was nothing in comparison to the myriad he had given her before.

"Yes, you do," he smiled, knocking the temple of his head with hers playfully.

It was a good five seconds or so before Haru could appreciate the magnitude of his offence, and another five for Gou to register what had happened herself.

"Shit…" he reeled back from her immediately, "Kou, I'm so sorry–"

"–No, no, it's okay…" she managed, though her cheeks were lighting up and her tongue felt far too large for her mouth.

Because, despite his earlier apology, Haru was still staring at her with that deep, all consuming look he was so good at: eyes tracking over her every reaction intently and darkening with thoughts that she could only guess because she shared them too.

Her heartbeat shifted up in tempo, her mouth running dry on the brink of a sudden quivering surge of intense awareness.

"…I mean…" she managed, "it's fine…I want…I want–"

Haru took a step closer to her, placing a hand on the counter between them, his fingers spreading over the granite causing Gou to shudder.

It was as if she could feel them, as acutely as if they were on her skin, realising shamelessly at that moment just how badly she wanted him to touch her.

As if he had read her mind, his other hand rose to her face, his thumb smoothing along the curve of her lower lip.

His gaze dropped down to her mouth.

"–More?" he asked.

A second of her hesitation was all he needed before he gathered her into his arms, and this time, he didn't hold back.

Haru ran a hand up the length of her back, and gripping at her hair, tilted her head up to him and brought his mouth swooping down into explosive connection with hers.

His tongue ran along the compressed line of her lips and she parted them against his instinctively, as if she had any idea what she was supposed to be doing in the first place.

But she didn't need to know, because her muscles moved for her; arms looping around his shoulders, her legs wrapping around his waist as he lifted her onto the kitchen counter.

She did not mind his wandering touch, or the way he pushed her clothes aside to feel the heat of her skin against his own; his gentle touch brushing against her spine and deftly releasing the fastening on her bra.

He smoothed the palm of his hands up the length of her shins and gripping at her knees, pried her legs apart and continued their journey along her thighs and under her skirt.

She could hear herself begging – please, please, please, Haru... – because everything he did was simply not enough, not until he was as close to her as he could possibly be.

She could feel her nerves delighting in the way he reacted to her encouragement, her pulse jumping underneath his lips, reveling in her shuddered intake of breath.

He groaned into her mouth, the single, most delicious sound vibrating to the back of her throat.

"Kou…"

She let her eyelids fall shut with his silky voice.

"…Do you remember me now?"

In a span of a breath, Gou was fired back into her harsh reality.

Her whole body stiffened with rejection.

With all of her strength, she shoved at Haruka's shoulders and sent him flying into the table set.

"No!" she cried behind her trembling hands. "No, I don't!"

Haru gathered his footing and gaped at her, crestfallen:

"Kou, calm down, please–"

"–stay away from me!"

He took a cautious step towards her all the same; "Kou. Y–You must remember – even a just little? Because even if your mind doesn't, your body does and what just happened shows that–"

"–I know, but please don't try to force it!" Gou raked at him with impatience. She gripped at her head, insides spinning out of control. "Don't you see how frustrating this is for me?"

"Kou–"

"–Stop calling me that!" she spat. "I don't even know who you _are!_ "

"But–"

"–I don't want to be here anymore! I don't want to be anywhere _near_ you!" Gou fused her eyes shut, yelling madly over his protests. "I want to go _home!_ "

Silence fell, alive with the throbbing undertones of her hysterical outburst.

If heartbreak were an expression, it was stamped all over his face and poised in every wilted muscle of his body.

"I'm sorry, you're right, that was…" he apologised, the light leaving his eyes, "…I won't let that happen again."

Wordlessly, Haru left the kitchen, abandoning dinner all together and took off towards the front door.

He snatched up his keys on the way and slipped on a pair of sneakers.

Gou didn't know why she felt compelled to follow after him.

"Wait, w–where are you going?" she asked, like she had the right to question him at all.

"For a run," his voice was brittle. "I won't be long."

The sound of their apartment door clicked shut before she could question him further, and noise that followed was the sound of her own tears.

With knees threatening to fold, Gou covered her face with spread hands, a feeling of despairing emptiness closing around her.

She didn't mean to shout at him like that.

She had never hated herself more in her whole life.

* * *

Haru was not sure how, but his impromptu evening run somehow ended at a nearby bar where Makoto was waiting, ready with a freshly pulled pint of beer.

With a slurred tongue, Haru spieled on about how difficult the past three weeks had been, ranting bitterly about their argument, how he and Gou had "never spoken like that to each other before" and how "god damn sexually frustrated" he was these days.

"It's like she's not even trying!" Haru denounced, always a little more talkative after a couple of drinks.

"Isn't it obvious, Haru?" Makoto offered his rational outlook. "Gou's mind has erased the last three years worth of memories, and you have been present in her life for the past two..."

Hunched over the bar counter and swaying in his seat, Makoto realised that he had to spell it out for the slightly inebriated Haruka.

"...The reason why she doesn't trust you, why she isn't open to trying to fix things with you is because, in her current state of mind…"

He explained:

"…Gou is still in love with Mikoshiba Seijuro."

* * *

Gou waited up for Haru's return, but with no word from him minutes to eleven, she decided to distract herself with a bath – sitting for what felt like hours glaring at whatever skin she could see through the clouded water.

Muscle memory, Haru had called it at the pool.

Gou traced a fingertip over her knee and the top of her thigh and shuddering, could still feel his hands every inch of her skin.

She blew out noisily: what had happened to her just now?

She couldn't explain herself – that was the most appalling discovery of all.

How had she lost control like that?

On every level her body had recognised his, reached out to him with an insanely instinctive need that she could not control.

Oh god, her very bones ached for him.

She let a hand dip between her thighs, remembering how she much had wanted him, so badly that she thought she would die if she couldn't have him.

Throwing her head back against the edge of the bathtub, Gou thought of his lips on hers and the way his hands had taken control, mimicking the feeling as she fused her eyes shut and curled two digits inside of her.

"Haru…" she heard herself moan – until she startled upright the second she realised exactly what she was doing.

A sob escaped her throat at the realisation: that she had never wanted anything or anyone more in her entire life, and it terrified her.

Because, why?

Who was he to her?

What had he done to provoke that kind of reaction from her?

There was only one thing Gou knew for sure, and that was:

She needed answers.

* * *

The single, most potent memory before her accident had occurred was the day that Mikoshiba Seijuro proposed to her.

It had been at the restaurant where they had their first date and to add to the authenticity, he was the same, blumbering mess he was the night he had proposed that Gou said yes, of course, in a heartbeat.

Seijuro was everything a girl who had grown up without a father would want: a strong, male figure, devilishly handsome and above all else – present, a constant in her life from the very start, when used to tail after her all over campus and carry her books, begging her to give him a chance.

And when she did, she fell in love with him – so deeply that it seemed impossible to have woken up and learnt that she had chosen to spend her life with someone else she did not even remember.

* * *

It wasn't difficult to track him down.

Mikoshiba Seijuro was now head coach of the senior swim team at Samezuka, his high school where he spent his most of his treasured teenage years as their captain. He had always said to Gou that if his own career as a professional failed to take off, it would be his dream to end up teaching there too.

He spotted her from across the pool and his eyebrows rose halfway up to his hairline.

"Gou-kun!" he waved exaggeratedly, and even though she always hated that nickname, it felt familiar to her ears and she couldn't help but smile and wave back.

He hesitated before her hugged her, and even then his arms were loose around her shoulders.

"It's – it's so good to see you," he said, apprehensively. "I heard about your accident...I wanted to visit but…"

She waited to speak to him when practice was over, not wanting to cause too much of a disruption, and agreed to meet him inside his office.

It was like an adult version of his college dorm, she thought, and about a similar size too.

His desk was cluttered with unopened letters and empty protein bar wrappers, and his walls were tacked with pictures of his team, his family, and Gou was pleased to see that his goofy younger brother hadn't changed a bit in the past couple of years.

She found that anything with a frame held slightly more significance; his university diploma, his teaching licence and awards.

What surprised Gou the most was that he still had the framed snapshot of her that had been in his room too – hidden amongst the books and trophies that lined the shelf above his desk.

Serijuro returned before she could pick it's meaning for too long.

They fumbled through the formalities – "you look well," "s–so do you, Gou-kun!" – before she explained the reason for her visit, her accident and her amnesia, and the all questions she needed answering because of it.

"...It's all a bit strange for me, as you can imagine," she completed with a nervous laugh. "Because, the last I remember...I was...engaged to you..."

Serijuro had offered her the only seat in his office, and sat himself perched on the edge of his desk with hands resting on his knees.

He looked as if he were struggling to hold himself up in that position, even more so to digest what she had told him, making no indication to elaborate on anything she said.

"...I'm really sorry for bringing this all up again," Gou prompted, feeling awful as she did. "I just – I want to know...what went wrong between us? And how I ended up with...?"

For some reason, she couldn't even say Haru's name around him, judging by the way her ex-fiancé blew air past his lips and ran a stressed had through his hair.

He was still as handsome as ever, Gou thought sillily.

Age had only made his features mature and his stubble grow a little darker. He was still tall, tanned and well built, and she was pleased to see quite clearly through his uniform that he was sticking to that strict gym regimen of his.

"The thing is Gou. I'm still trying to figure that out myself," Seijuro finally admitted.

Gou blinked, taken aback. "What you do mean?"

"We were happy, we were planning our wedding – we had that huge country house booked for the day, the one with the big gardens – like you always wanted..."

His voice trailed off, apparently in recollection that was too painful to rencounter.

"...And then you met Nanase-san," he skipped a beat, unable to let a little bitterness slip into his tone. "I knew he liked you, from the very first moment I met him..."

Serijuro looked at her then, eyes still searching for answer.

"...I just didn't realise that you liked him too."

Gou leant back in her seat, with no idea what she had expected him to say.

She enumerated the countless of reasons of why people break up – arguments, differences, simply falling out of love – but she had never considered that she had been the one to end it, to have left someone who loved her and she loved in return.

Her throat contracted, "it was...me?"

Serijuro glanced at her briefly, before averting his gaze to the corner of the room.

"I'm sorry I can't be more helpful. It honestly came as quite a shock when you asked me to call it all off." He admitted sadly: "I had no idea you were unhappy."

And Gou could not see herself unhappy with him either and this new information, was thrown into a state of anguished conflict.

Of course, with her luck, it wasn't never going to be as simple as a bad argument or 'falling out of love,' – she had fallen for someone else and hurt Serijuro in the process – for feelings that barely existed to her anymore.

"How...did you feel?" she swallowed, "when we...when I…?"

She watched his shoulders deflate with the weight of the question.

"It was hard, I mean...this is the first time we've properly spoken since…"

To hear that they were no longer on speaking terms was apparently the last straw as Gou's trembling bottom lip quickly escalated into full on wails, snot and tears.

Seijuro, as any man would, panicked and frantically began shuffling around his desk looking for a stray box of tissues.

"Please, Gou-kun, don't cry–"

"– I – I'm so sorry" she sobbed, "I must have caused you a lot of pain–!"

"–It's okay, it's been years now! I got over it as soon as I saw how happy you were with Nanase," Seijuro insisted good-naturedly. "I worked hard on myself, ended up getting a job that I really enjoy..."

He added, after a beat:

"...I'm even seeing someone now too!"

The tears stopped the instant Gou felt a pang of jealousy pound at her chest.

"You are?" she sniffed.

"Yes, for a few months now," he confirmed, and a second pang hit her in the stomach, leaving her with a winded feeling that made it difficult to breathe.

"I–I'm glad," she managed nonetheless. "I'm really glad you're happy now, Seijuro."

Awkwardly, she wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands, and before she could embarrass herself any further, stated that she had to be somewhere in the afternoon.

Politely refusing a ride back into town, Gou pulled her best fake smile and stepped into to his arms for an final, amicable embrace.

She breathed in the familiar smell of chlorine mixed with his aftershave, "thank you for seeing me," she spoke into his chest. "Even after...everything. You have no idea how nice it is to see a familiar face."

Gou felt his arms close around her, tighter and for longer than before, and it was so nice to be held by him, to look up and see his face smiling down at her, telling her that everything was going to be okay.

Because it came from Seijuro – not from her doctors, her mother or Haru – she could actually believe it, and unable to help herself, Gou raised up on her tiptoes to reach that last couple of inches that separated their lips.

It happened too fast for her to stop herself.

The next thing she knew, there was a racket of folders and stationery swept off the desk before she was laid onto it, and Serijuro towering over her, hands at tangled in her hair, tracing down her sides and wrestling tirelessly through several fortresses of clothing.

He was muttering under his breath of how much he missed her, how he always knew that she would come back to him and even though it was all she could remember, Gou could not help but feel it was not quite what her body was used to, or rather, what she truly wanted.

He did not kiss the way Haruka had kissed her; did not touch her like he did, in that way that made her toes curl and her lungs gasp for air…

Gou's eyes snapped open, as if coming out of a daze.

"...I'm – I'm sorry, I – I can't!" she strained her neck away from his mouth. "I'm married. I'm married, Serijuro!"

At that moment, the office door swung open and Tachibana Makoto walked in, already halfway through a sentence explaining a swimming schedule or something or other.

If Gou could have chosen to remember anything at all, it was that Haruka's best friend worked as an instructor at the same school as her ex-fiancé.

The couple sprung apart, but not fast enough for him to register the position they were in.

"Mako-kun," Seijuro teetered nervously, maybe even a little irritably. "I didn't hear you knock…?"

Makoto shot the man a boding look, making an effort to soften it before they fell into Gou's smudged lipstick, tousled hair and giveaway guilty expression.

He stepped through the office door again, holding it open for all the world to see.

"Gou-chan." He said it as more of an instruction than a suggestion: "do you need a ride home?"

Gou nodded and followed after him, unable to utter a single word.

* * *

Makoto put the car into park outside Gou and Haru's apartment building, but the girl in the passenger seat next to him made no indication to exit the vehicle.

She had been silent the entire ride home, with her hands fastened to her lap, tracing the perimeter of her fingertips as if they wanted to escape from her palms.

He spoke to tell her that they had arrived and with a startle, Gou turned to him and panicked:

"Makoto-senpai, please don't tell–"

"–Gou-chan," Makoto cut short her pleas. "I know you don't know him very well right now, that he's nothing but a stranger to you, but–"

He appraised her with all the earnestness he could muster.

"–Haru is a good man."

Gou closed her eyes against the hot moisture lashing in the backs of her eyelids, threatening to fall.

"I know," she said.

* * *

He was not home when she arrived, his absence was enough to send warning signals to every nerve in her body.

She called his office and mobile, twice – did this guy ever answer his phone? – and paced around their apartment for something to do, eventually deciding in light of the wasted meal the previous evening, to get started on a dinner of mackerel for his eventual return.

She heard keys and the apartment door unlock not long after she had set the table, apron clad and acting like the perfect wife she was supposed to be.

"Harukra-san, okaeri..."

Gou didn't have to know her husband well to see that her sixth sense had not betrayed her, when Haru cast a look at the meal she had prepared and saw every angle of his body go rigid with tension.

They had not been married long, but it was long enough to know all the places where she tickled, and the way she laughed when he did.

Haru loved the way her ponytail swayed when she talked about something that excited her, hated that she never finished her tea, and he knew that whenever Gou felt guilty – for dropping that expensive camera lens he just bought, or accidentally dying all of shirts his pink – she would make him mackerel for dinner, even though she hated how it stunk up their tiny apartment for days.

"You're home late," she spoke into their silence nervously.

She pulled out a seat for him, her guilt also making her unnecessarily helpful.

"Busy day?"

Haru sat down, without a word, and she hurriedly took the seat opposite him, desperate to put something between them due to his current mood.

Gou picked at her food, and Haru barely touched his, sitting for minutes that were hours with his hands fisted underneath the table.

"I was just on the phone to your mother," he finally spoke.

Gou sat upright in her seat to his attention, unaware that she was waiting for him to acknowledge her.

"Oh? I haven't spoken to her today. Did she say anything about–?"

"–You can move back in with her tomorrow."

His statement was followed by a clatter of cutlery against china plates.

Gou's throat contracted, "w–what are you saying...?"

Haru glanced up at her, his expression indifferent.

"Isn't that what you want?" he delivered as a flat aside.

Her carmine eyes searched for his desperately, hating that after everything they'd been through these past couple of weeks, that he was acting so indifferent about her.

"D–Don't you want me here anymore?" Gou heard herself say, a stupid question because she closed her eyes against his answer, already knowing what he was going to say.

Haru looked down at his meal, and did not look up at her again.

"No," he whispered. "I don't."


	2. Present

Gou returned to her childhood home the next day.

Hoping to be welcomed back with open arms, she instead, watched her mother dash past her previously hospitalised daughter and straight into the arms of her new husband.

"Haruka-kun, is everything alright...?!"

Gou eyeballed the awkward, one-sided embrace with an almost comic sense of betrayal.

"O-Okaa-san...!"

As promised, Haruka had drove her over first thing in the morning.

And as he cooked her breakfast, helped her load and unload her suitcases from the car, he did not utter a single word of what had conspired the day before.

He let the bitter atmosphere hang around them purposefully, an ominous cloud or elephant in the room that he chose to not acknowledge even though it was virtually impossible not to.

Gou wished he didn't do that.

She wished that he would yell at her, tell her how he really felt and make her feel even worse than she already did.

But he did not say a word to her, nothing that wasn't necessary.

Instead, she found herself waiting patiently for his attention, all morning and even up to now, watching him politely decline her mother's invitation to stay for lunch before taking his leave.

He didn't even turn to look at her as he made his way back to the car, the final stab in the chest that caused her to call after him desperately:

"Haruka-senpai…!"

He stopped in his tracks, only by the slight tugging he felt at the back of his shirt.

His stare was so glacial that Gou had to avert her eyes, but still held steadfastly on to the edge of the material.

She wasn't used to it yet, that unreadable expression of his as always; spurring a curiosity within her that wanted to know every single thought that went through his mind.

Was it always like this with him?

Did he make everyone feel this way?

She could spend a lifetime trying to figure him out, she thought.

He turned to her, slowly and even a little reluctantly, because both of them knew he had things that he wanted to say but neither wanted to hear them out loud.

He stilled and finally, she lifted her head: her eyes clashing with glittering blue, staring down at her intently, like he was taking in every detail of her.

A stray strand of hair blew across the bridge of her nose and just as she was about to reach up and tuck it behind her ear, found Haruka's hand ready at the action himself.

But in the end, he did not touch her.

He spun his heel, leaving her patently without words.

"See you," was all he had to say.

* * *

  
Haruka put the car into gear and made it down the road and one left turn before he had to pull over because he could barely think, let alone drive straight.

But he knew he had to get as far away from his wife as possible, before turned the car around and said something stupid and lost her for good this time.

So the next thing Haru knew, his foot was flattening the gas pedal to the floor and he was bulleting down the highway at an illegal speed limit.

The only thing that was able to stop him from reaching his final destination were the flashing colours of red and blue blinking up in the corner of his rear view mirror – the only other thing that could make his day even worse.

He pulled over, and not long after, there was a tap at his window.

"Sir, do you realise that you were driving over 60 on a 30mph road?"

The officer asked to see his licence, comparing the photograph to Haruka's unusually pallid face, and his knuckles even whiter from gripping the steering wheel too hard.

Mercifully, he handed the licence back to him.

"It's early, you're lucky no one else is around. I'll let you off with a warning this time, but try to be more careful driving around here," the officer reminded him. "I'm sure a young man like you has a wife and kids at home to think about, right?"

* * *

Gou was homesick – and it didn't make sense at all.

Because she was home, the house where she had grown up, and from her memory, the only place she had ever lived.

She had been rooming with Haruka for just over a month and felt as if she no longer belonged anywhere where he was not close by – in his blue apron cooking up something delicious, or dripping wet from one of his extraordinarily long baths.

As expected, Gou heard nothing from him in the first few weeks.

She learnt that he was doing well and back to work from her older brother, whom she hounded desperately for details of what he was up to; how was he feeling, and if he was feeling anywhere near as lost as she did.

To distract herself, Gou returned to work herself the week after moving back in with her mother – another place where she felt disconnected and inept – slowly growing irritated more each day by the pitying looks and patronising words from her work colleagues, that come the first Thursday afternoon, she was called into her boss's office and was told:

"Maybe you should go home for the rest of the week, Gou-chan? You shouldn't over-exert yourself in these early days…"

That evening, she arrived home to her mother sitting at the dining room table, with her scrapbooks and pouring over an article from a glossy magazine.

Gou got her hoarder tendencies from her mother – her love for scrapbooking and finding sentiment in even the most ridiculous of items – and in her passing curiosity, looked over her shoulder to see what she was working on.

Her vision zeroed in on a full page spread of Haru in a dark navy suit, hands in his trouser pockets, taking up a model-like stance and her pupils shrank.

She snatched the magazine from her hands, ignoring her mother's pointed and impatient: "careful, Gou!"

Her wide, red eyes skimmed over the article, picking up words and phrases like: "up and coming," "genius," "prodigy" and "most exciting collection to date."

Gou's fingers gripped at the glossy paper to the point of almost tearing it.

"What is this?!" she demanded, her voice a high, feverish pitch.

"It's an article I found about Haruka's next exhibition," her mother spoke with an almost maddening impatience – as if it was supposed to be the most normal thing in the world.

She made a successful grab of the magazine before Gou tore it, laying the paper back down on the kitchen table carefully and smoothing out the creases.

She agreed to let her read the article, along with everything else she had gathered, on the condition that Gou would calm down.

"I can't believe you keep a scrapbook for Haru too…" Gou remarked, half amazed, half not really surprised.

Her mother smiled and raised the book at arm's length, admiring her handiwork.

"You might not remember anything about that boy," she explained, "but he's as much of a son to me as your brother is."

Her mother was serious – Gou and Rin had their own books knocking around somewhere too – though she was sure her own was nowhere near as impressive and Nanase Haruka's.

There were newspaper articles, reviews, brochures of his shows – and many pictures of him receiving highly prestigious awards where he wasn't even looking at the camera!

Gou had laughed at that.

For someone who takes photographs for a living, he sure hated having his own picture taken.

He had mentioned his profession before, but only when she asked, and never elaborating to this extent that Gou found herself scouring the internet for more information.

To her dismay, Haruka was scarcely spotted in public of gave many interviews. Some people called him a private person, whilst others had the audacity to call him arrogant.

Even so, his small Wikipedia page and two paragraphs "About Me" section on his website told her more about her husband than she ever tried to find out in the time they had lived together.

Haru had been an aspiring swimmer during his time at university but held no real desire to join a team or compete.

He had minored in art but his real love was for photography, where he built up a portfolio and debuted at a young age, shooting for high profile fashion magazines that Gou had idolised as a teenager.

Now, he held exhibitions all over the country, and his latest collection – ambiguously named "Future Fish" – was causing quite the uproar in the photography world.

It was nearing the early hours of the morning when Gou had just about scoured the entire world wide web for information on "Nanase Haruka" and decided to call it a night.

She tossed her laptop to the end of the bed and stared vacantly at the bedroom ceiling, berating herself: why hadn't she asked more about him, what he did when he disappeared into the dark room, or even asked to see the photographs he took?

Gou recalled with dismay, that she hardly asked about him at all; about his childhood, his likes, his dislikes or even their relationship – even how they met.

Haru never imposed any of that on her, never forced on her anything she did not ask for or wish to know.

She realised now that he was probably waiting for her to ask, to show a little curiosity in him – in them as a couple.

And it wasn't as if she wasn't interested, but she was overwhelmed and maybe a little scared.

She had woken up from her accident had felt out of her depth and she wanted to take control of something, anything.

Even if it were simply the amount of information she chose to know.

* * *

He would have shut the door in his face, if he hadn't put his hand in the way of the doorframe – and even then, Haru had half the mind to slam the door as hard as he could regardless.

"Nanase-san," Mikoshiba Seijuro urged. "Look, I only came over here because you weren't returning my calls..."

And with good reason, Haru thought, because for Gou's sake only, he had been avoiding Seijuro's messages and deleting his voicemails before he had a chance to listen to them.

It was a miracle in itself that he hadn't punched the guy in the face yet, given the perfect opportunity literally on his doorstep.

"Rin...had a word with me," Seijuro admitted.

Haru's eyes narrowed into slits.

"Rin needs to mind his own business."

Seijuro scoffed, "you and I both know that when it comes to his sister – her business is his business."

The knowing look he gave Haru irritated him more than it should have.

The fact that they had both dated his wife and had both suffered through the over-protectiveness of her bat-shit-crazy older brother was nothing to break bread over.

He took up an unwelcoming stance at the doorway, indicating no chance of an invite indoors.

"What do you want, Mikoshiba?"

"You asked her to move out," Seijuro stated as if it were the most absurd reaction to have had.

"So?"

"Well, I think you're making a mistake."

Haru's hands fisted by his sides. "Why should you care?" he glared, astounded by his cheek. "You…"

"I kissed her, yes," Seijuro admitted. "She came to me for help, and I took advantage of the situation."

He looked at Haru then, eyes determined; sad, but nonetheless full of conviction.

"But she told me to stop. Because she was married – to you. Which you and I both know is more than she'd ever done for me."

* * *

Haru had lived alone since he was a teenager.

His parents had a chronic case of wanderlust; travel journalists that would only visit home for days at a time, and his grandmother, who had been his carer in his earliest years, passed away peacefully in her sleep when he was at the brink of turning sixteen.

But Haru managed, as always.

He was used to being left alone.

So that was why he could not work out why it was so difficult adjusting to life without Gou.

He couldn't decide which was worse: living with her when she had no recollection of who he was, or living without her at all.

The way she treated him like a stranger was unbearable, how she had reacted when he kissed her was heartbreaking.

But in turn, their small apartment felt lifeless without her and he couldn't stand it – unable to live with the ghost of her sprawled out on their couch or her off-key singing as she attempted to cook in the kitchen – driving Haru to spend most of his days locked in his dark room, where he couldn't see or feel a thing but the images bathed in red light.

Letting himself with the spare key Gou had given him, Rin paced around his sister's apartment, registering the cigarette stubs and coffee rings littered over every surface before heading down the hall and almost kicking down the door of Haru's office when he found that it was locked.

Eventually, after some coaxing, Haru emerged like a hermit from its shell, wincing at the slither of daylight that came through as the opened door.

Rin gave him an uneasy once over.

"Jesus Christ, Haru. When was the last time you ate something?"

And besides the endless cups of coffee and the occasional off-limits cigarette, Haru was genuinely unable to answer the question.

He pressed the palms of his hands against his eye sockets, "I've been working," he dismissed.

Rin scoffed and scolded him all the same.

He glared, his vision finally returning. "Look, if you've come here to lecture me–"

"–I came here for Gou," his brother-in-law cut him off before they could bicker. "She asked me to check up on you."

Haru's eyes widened as if that were the last thing he expected to hear.

"She's really worried about you, Haru. She asks for you all the time." Rin added, with a roll of his eyes: "it's kind of annoying."

Ignoring the latter comment, Haru returned his statement with a look of portent disbelief that the man had to remind him, sternly:

"It's been over a month since she's heard from you, Haru. Of course, she misses you."

It was as if simply hearing from Gou brought upon a jolt of energy, like a gasp of air after holding your breath too long underwater, enough to make his heart start beating again.

He had thought that returning her to her mother's – to somewhere familiar and away from him and all the turmoil and confusion that he brought – would finally make her happy, make her more at ease.

Haru had made that decision, admittedly on impulse, when Makoto had told him about Gou's visit to see Mikoshiba.

Because despite the pain he went through when she distanced herself from him, and the pain he would go through when she left – Haru could not stand it when she cried: and even more so when he could do nothing to help her.

He did not envisage, however, what kind of impact his departure would have had on Gou, especially in her current state.

She had begged him to let her stay, to give her another chance.

But he refused, and Haru realised now that he was being selfish.

She must have felt wretched, abandoned, like he had given up on her completely – but that wasn't the case at all.

He loved her, so much so that he couldn't believe that he had got it all wrong:

That being without her wasn't going to fix anything at all.

* * *

It was complicated, when they first started seeing each other.

Neither of them intended for it to last, or go as far as it did.

Partially because she was getting married in two months, and mainly because Rin had forewarned him against touching his sister with a bargepole.

And there were other girls, of course, there were.

It was to make sure no one would suspect that anything was going on between them, and (he would only admit later on) to make Gou jealous.

There were models from his photoshoots with legs up to their armpits, and the occasional girlfriend who made it past date three and certainly held some potential – if not for them realising that Haru was vacant not in body but in soul and finally – he knew despite all warning or guilt, why he could not keep away:

Gou was made for him, and he for her.

* * *

When she woke up from her accident, slate wiped clean, Gou was distraught to find out that she and Hanamura Chigusa – her maid of honour and best friend since middle school – were no longer in touch.

Because of all the people who visited her whilst she was in hospital, she had expected Hana-chan to be the first.

They had not argued or fallen out, that is just how life worked out sometimes. Gou had just gotten married and Hana had moved to the States to be with her soon-to-be-fiance, so it had been easy for them to lose touch over the past couple of years.

Nevertheless, Gou could trust Hana to be on the first plane back to Japan when she called with news about her accident.

She could trust that girl with her life, she shared everything Hana-chan, to the uncomfortable degree that best friends usually do, and Gou was sure that she would be able to shed some light on the development of her relationship with Nanase Haruka.

"You didn't tell me about him," Hana revealed, to her dismay.

Gou's shoulders deflated in her seat, a comfy booth in a coffee shop they agreed to meet each other.

"I didn't?" she grimaced.

Hana shook her head negative, "I actually found out about you two at your rehearsal dinner. A week or so before your wedding."

And Gou physically winced with the second-hand embarrassment of her own forgotten actions.

Had she really let whatever happened between them go on that long?

Was that why Haru was so reluctant to disclose the finer details of their relationship, especially with the knowledge that she was possibly still harbouring feelings for her ex?

"I know, I couldn't believe it either," Hana laughed like it was her favourite story to tell. "You never kept anything from me, and I never let you forget it!"

Gou's cheeks coloured to the shade of her hair and Hana grinned, knowing that expression all too well.

She could not forget how the Nanase Haruka was looking at her friend the night – with hesitation – or was it anticipation? Either way, Hana could tell that he wanted Gou – by the way his eyes were fixated to her very being, possessing her in a way that was just as close but without physically touching her.

Hana grew up noticing the way boys looked at her friend; how their eyes would linger when she tossed her hair over her shoulder, or how they would pause in the midst of their sentences to watch her laugh and shield her smile with her fingertips.

But it wasn't just the way that Haru was looking at her: but the way Gou had been looking at him.

It was as if she met him halfway in that hesitation, seeing into him, into each other, on a whole different level.

They arguing from what she could tell, but there was no shouting; no waving of hands or angered expressions.

They spoke hushed, urgent voices, with their faces close and they looked – almost alarmingly so – just like any other bickering couple.

In their own little world.

"I heard him propose to you that night–" Hana giggled at Gou's changing expressions, "–or at least, I think it was a proposal...?"

"What do you mean?" Gou pressed, and the woman tapped at her chin with her fingertip to further the anticipation.

"I remember he was angry, and you weren't listening to him, you were just trying to calm him down. He said that things had gotten too far for him to just up and leave and forget about you..."

Gou leant forward in her chair, eagerly soaking up the details like a sponge.

"...He said that he loved you, and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you…"

Without her even registering it, Gou's legs were shaking underneath the table, a tug of nostalgia somewhere in the marrow of her bones.

She could easily conjure up the smell of the air sweetened with champagne and canapes, and the biting spring breeze on that balcony, feeling like nothing compared the bitterness between them.

But what she could imagine, so potently as if it were really her memory, was the unbearable need to feel him close, and hating to deny herself from that privilege.

"...And then he said..."

Hana continued.

"'Kou – you should be marrying me instead.'"

* * *

He answered halfway through the second ring and she knew that he had already forgiven her.

"Kou?"

His low, rounded voice spread from her chest to her fingertips and all of a sudden, her tongue felt too large for her mouth.

"Is something wrong?" Haru spoke in her hesitance, and Gou leant her cheek against the receiver with a smile.

"No...I was just thinking," she said. "I haven't heard your voice really in a long time..."

* * *

Gou woke, like she had every day for the past week, at the sound of an incoming text message.

The sender's name that blinked up on the screen was enough to make her spring up from under her duvet to its attention.

**NANASE HARUKA:** Good morning. I know it's a Saturday, but don't sleep in too late today.

She giggled, rolled onto her stomach and typed a response straight away.

After a week of being back in touch, Gou realised how much she lived for his little updates.

True to his personality, his texts didn't elaborate on much, but he told her what he was up to when she asked; about work and the show he was putting together at the end of the month.

There was a reserved quality about their exchanges, of course.

A guy like Haru was not one to keep a grudge, but nevertheless a difficult person to win his trust back after he had been hurt.

But beggars can't be choosers, and Gou was more than happy with the steady stream of messages that came through because even though he didn't say it, Haru sounded healthier, a little more upbeat with every exchange, all of this confirmed by Rin who reported that he was no longer "moping about" and "feeling sorry for himself" – to use his own words.

It was the morning of Haruka's exhibition when her mother greeted her with breakfast and question of what she was going to wear to the event.

Gou looked up from her cereal dumbly, having been fixated on her cell phone laid centimetres away from the bowl.

She answered, mid-chew: "but I haven't been invited..."

"Haruka hasn't mentioned it?" her mother repeated incredulously. "With your phone going off as much as it does these days?"

Gou'd head sunk into her shoulders like a guilty teenager.

"Well...he hasn't said anything about me coming..."

Typically, her mother waved off her concerns with a flippant wave of her wrist. "You don't need an invitation, you're his wife!" she laughed as if things were really that simple.

Gou scrolled through his messages, noting that Haru had mentioned the event more than a couple of times, but never explicitly asking for her presence.

Still – even though they were not living together – she was his wife.

Her mother had been invited, so had her brother and their friends – and coming to an executive decision that the invitation would undoubtedly extend to her, Gou came to the belated realisation that she would be seeing Haruka for the first time in over a month.

She abandoned her breakfast half-eaten, stood from her seat and announced that she would start getting ready for the evening even though it was just turning 10am.

Dumping the entirety of her wardrobe onto her bed, Gou poured over several outfits for hours on end before deciding on a simple, black dress that she felt was unbearably plain but the only thing in her old wardrobe that she felt comfortable in.

Typically before any big event, her hair was uncooperative.

She pulled it into a ponytail like she had a thousand times before, but in the end, gave up on the endeavour and let her mother run a curling iron through her hair instead.

She left it loose, flowing down to the mid of her back, and after setting her make-up and threading her engagement ring on her finger, her outfit was finally complete.

The exhibit doors opened at 7pm, and with a half hour journey into town, Gou was already in the passenger seat of the taxi at quarter past 6.

Unfortunately, her urgency was lost on her mother, who was still finding the right bag to match with her pair of shoes, and along with rush hour traffic, they were almost an hour late when the taxi pulled up in front of venue.

From her obsessive research, she knew that Haru was a well-respected photographer in the modern art community but to her surprise, she could barely see his photographs from all the famous patrons and paparazzi filing into the hall.

She took no notice of them however, tip-toeing and neck stretching until, finally, she spotted him – effortlessly resplendent against the magnificent backdrop of his artwork, in dark fitted jeans and a tailored blazer to smarten up the look.

His profile became visible when a fellow patron approached, and Gou was shattered by just how much she liked looking at him – how familiar every gesture was, every fluid change of stance.

He was gorgeous, even on a superficial level, that Gou could easily envision how she had become entrapped with him in the first place.

To her dismay, he was constantly engaged by a conveyor belt of people, greeting him, praising him one after the other for his marvellous work – women, in particular, hovering around him and his recent availability.

A brunette haired girl she recognised from his previous shoots was all too familiar.

She kissed him on each cheek as greeting; her paws lingering at his jaw, his collarbone through his shirt, laughing loudly at whatever little thing he said, which couldn't have been that funny because Haru was only ever funny when he didn't mean to be.

Infuriatingly, the girl was beautiful: tall and slim as she posed with Haru's arm around her waist for the press and paparazzi, and looking more at home by his side that Gou ever could.

She realised then, with paralysing dismay, that Haru didn't need her here – and after what she had done – he probably didn't want her here at all.

He wasn't even looking for her, she thought, he did not mention or invite her to the event, but just as Gou was turning to leave, he called out:

"Kou," his voice reaching out to her through the crowd. "Come over here. I'd like to introduce you to someone."

Like she had been caught in an invisible fishing net line between her chest and his, Gou found herself standing next to him without even realising it.

He lay a hand on the small of her back, his thumb stroking the dip of her spine and introduced: "Aki-chan. This is my wife, Nanase Kou," the simple sentiment enough for Gou's heartbeat to swell to disproportionate sizes in her chest.

Was this what it was like to be married? Gou thought to herself.

To walk into a crowded room but not really feel as if you have arrived until he sees you, touches you, and sets you by his side?

She peeked up at his face; calm and composed and completely at ease in the situation.

She was being silly.

For all she knew, Haru had introduced her to people as 'his wife' a million times before.

The woman gushed over her – "of course, the famous Nanase Kou!" she grabbed Gou's hand before she could offer it, "Aki Yazaki – but please, just call me Zaki-chan..." – the initial embarrassment by her reaction followed by the unstoppable pride to have her name so closely interlinked with his.

Gou was left ashamed of her jealousy after Aki's warm greeting, especially when she asked after her health and expressed her condolences of her recent accident.

"It's nothing, just a little bump on the head," she insisted without thinking, regretting her answer when she caught Haru's sad smile in her peripheral vision.

Aki hugged them both tightly before she left to mingle. She gushed over the couple once more, expressing her delight in finally meeting Haruka's wife who he "always spoke so fondly about" – but her tiny, suggestive squeeze around her husband's middle did not go unnoticed by Gou that she strayed a little closer to him, all of a sudden territorial.

"She likes you," Gou tried to moderate the jealousy in her voice. She looked around at the photographs, her eyes narrowing, "and you like her. You photograph her a lot."

Haruka smiled to himself, hauling her by the waist as he brought her to his side.

"Yes, she has a great bone structure, so she photographs well..."

He lead them away from the crowds, and lowered his voice to a whisper:

"...But I think she is more interested in you than I."

It took a moment for Gou to discern what he was suggesting, only understanding when she spotted Zaki from the other side of the hall, her gorgeous, sunflower smile aimed straight in her direction.

"Gou-chaaaan!" the girl called with a wave, and Gou's face flushed an unnatural shade of red.

Haruka showed her around his exhibit for an undisturbed, exclusive tour in which she felt privileged to receive given the number of people still filing into the venue.

There were large, colourful prints of a fireman and a cook enjoying their lunch break in an alleyway, and a little boy looking amazed by a display of balloons being released into a perfect blue sky.

To her delight, she recognised their friends and family also made an appearance – Dr. Rei Ryugazaki in his white coat, her brother on duty in his policeman's uniform, even Nagisa dressed up as an astronaut chasing aliens.

They were not posed, but candid photographs – mainly of friends laughing, enjoying lunch together and admiring the stars.

As she stopped to admire each piece, Gou was sure the abstract art critics would be able to come up with some sort of convoluted meaning behind the collection.

She, on the other hand, could not for the life of her work out what it all meant – but they say that art is an individual experience and for Gou, looking at Haru's photographs made her for lack of a better word, happy.

They gave her a sense of hope.

She had to ask, however: "why is it called 'Future Fish'?"

Haru's pursed his lips and pondered. "I guess the theme was 'The Future' and I like fish?" he offered, and Gou burst out laughing despite herself.

A faint smile played on his lips.

Haru asked, "do you like them?"

"I think they're exquisite," Gou completed breathlessly, but to her surprise, Haru smirked at her very genuine compliment.

"You didn't think much of them when you first saw them," he explained after her questioning.

Gou tore her eyes from the photograph of Rei in a laboratory and turned to him, patiently waiting for him to elaborate.

"I never told you the story of how we met," Haru continued, after some consideration. "It was the beginning of my career. I was having an exhibit just like this one, in a venue you were interested in booking for your wedding reception. You came for a tour and ended up looking at my photographs as well..."

Haru remembered the first time he saw her like it was yesterday.

He'd like to say that he fell for her at first sight, that sparks flew and they locked eyes across the room and instantly fell for each other – but in reality, Gou had infuriated him – barging into his exhibit uninvited and frowning up at his pictures, insulting them in front of other patrons.

Haru smiled at the memory, "you called them..."

_"...Pretentious! What's so great about them?"_

_Haru winced._

_"I mean, a picture of a puddle?" Gou gestured incredulously at the image._

_"Really?" Haru decided to remain diplomatic. He quoted his latest shining review: "I hear that the way he captures the flow of water, captures it's life and vivacity is revolutionary."_

_"Revolutionary?" Gou repeated incredulously. "I could take a better photograph on my cell phone with an Instagram filter!"_

Haru continued:

"A week later, Rin introduced me to you as his…"

"…photographer friend for the wedding," Gou completed in horror. She held her head in her hands, "I am so sorry–"

"–It's fine," Haru waved off her apologies. "You don't remember, but you already apologised a thousand times."

Even so, Gou simpered on the spot and announced that was a memory she'd rather not remember.

Haru curved an arm around her unperturbed, hauling her into the shelter of his body in a demonstration of reassurance.

"Honestly I appreciated the…constructive criticism you gave me," he laughed at the face she pulled. "Everyone's been calling me a 'genius' or a 'prodigy' my whole life and you were the first person to actually call me out."

Gou dared to peek up at him, noticing that same, faraway look in his expression – the one that used to make her sad.

"When I first started out, I did everything myself," Haru explained, "I couldn't rely on other people to make my photographs good."

He smiled down at her, stopping her heartbeat in its tracks.

"You made me expand my horizons. I'd never had become as successful as I am now if it weren't for you."

Leaving Gou with her brother and their friends, Haru went to do his 'rounds' with the sponsors and art collectors. He was largely absent for most of the evening until the event coordinators began gathering the crowds around the final, curtained photograph that, unlike the others, was hidden from display.

A man of not many words, Haru stood at the podium and thanked everyone for coming.

He explained a little about the exhibit, that 'Future Fish' actually represented his past and his present, a reminder to enjoy these moments instead of always worrying about the future; finally stating that this collection was largely inspired by the photograph he was about to reveal.

The curtain fell – the hall hushed with anticipation.

A hand flew to her mouth to silence a gasp.

It was a photograph of Gou – and it was captioned:

'My Future.'

* * *

"A lot of people ask me where I am going with my art, what am I working on next. If there is one thing that I have learnt whilst taking these photographs here today, is that we are always looking to the future that we never stop to appreciate the present. Moments like this..."

Haruka gestured to the photograph, a candid shot of Gou sitting side on from the camera, her figure shadowed onto the bare wooden floors.

She was perched on what it appeared to be a window ledge, in paint-splattered overalls and lounging with one leg bent to table a mug of tea, and the other dangling off the side with her toes barely brushing the floor.

She was looking outside of that window, head turned away from the camera that her only discernible features were her slight profile, and her crown of red hair and signature blue hair tie. The backdrop was of cloudless skies and overgrown trees, framed by curtainless window panes and half-painted bedroom walls.

The phrase: 'a picture is worth a thousand words' came to mind, as there was an uncanny silence at its reveal before the eruption of applause.

Haru continued:

"...With this in mind, I would like to take this opportunity to announce my indefinite hiatus..."

There was a collective gasp amongst the crowd; questions and outrage and camera flashes.

It was a good few minutes before Haru had the opportunity to speak again.

"...This photograph was taken before I had even begun compiling this collection," he explained, "and it was when I decided that I needed to focus on taking care of the most important person in my life. A lot of things have happened since, but my decision hasn't changed. I appreciate your support and understanding. Thank you all for coming tonight."

* * *

They hardly had the chance to speak to each other for the remainder of the night.

Not long after his speech, Haru was bombarded with questions and comments and demands for an explanation.

He was too young to retire, they said, at the peak of his career no doubt, but Haruka insisted despite all protest that the timing could not be better.

As the evening came to a close, Gou parted with Haru only to see off her mother.

Even after insisting on accompanying her home, the woman picked up on her reluctance to leave Haru on his own and was more than happy to leave her daughter in his hands.

"I'll only be in the way," she eluded with a twinkle in her eye and was speeding off into the night before Gou could get a word in to protest.

When she made her way back into the venue, Haruka was speaking intensely with what she gathered to be art collectors, so Gou went to find Nagisa whom she had spotted earlier, taking advantage of the free food with the rest of Haru's friends.

They greeted her warmly, sending their praise and congratulations to Haru through her, and though she tried her best to engage with them, Gou found her attention wondering – somehow entrapped by Haru's presence and occasionally, he would catch her glance and make her sip at her glass of wine with increasing regularity.

"Goodness, are they always like this?" Zaki spoke as a stage whisper, leaving the others laughing and Gou went red in the ears.

Occasionally, she would edge a little closer to overhear small snatches of their heated discussion.

Haru did not say much, unwilling to entertain the feverish demands of the art collectors that were getting increasingly aggressive due to his non-reaction.

By the amount of money she had overheard being exchanged, the man could easily live a comfortable life from selling a single piece, but he looked disgruntled and, for lack of a better word, pissed off when he finally came to retrieve her.

Gou slipped her hand into his, encouragingly.

"Congratulations on the sell," she smiled.

Haru snatched a glass from a passing waiter and hissed as the alcohol tore at his throat.

"I'm not selling it," he replied, probably in the same brash tone he had been using with the collectors.

Gou blinked, "you're not?" she asked.

And to her surprise, Haru brought the hand that was clasped around his to his lips, brushing them against her knuckles in covert demonstration.

She felt him smile against her skin, "do you think I'm comfortable with a stranger having a picture of my wife hanging on their living room wall?" he said.

* * *

It was difficult to hide her disappointment when Haru pulled the car up in front of her mother's house.

As the night came to a close, Haru asked if she "wanted to go home," and Gou had assumed he meant back to their apartment downtown.

But when he veered the car out of the city and towards her mother's place, she simpered in her seat wondering all the while how she could have been so shameless.

Nevertheless, she couldn't help but blurt out: "You're not coming in?" when Haru made no move to unbuckle his seatbelt with her.

He smiled, tilting his head to the side.

"You're drunk."

"I'm not."

"You always that."

Gou chewed on her bottom lip, the wine in her bloodstream rushing to her head and boosting her confidence.

"Can you at least see me to the door?"

She did not know what to expect, really. The walk was short and altogether unremarkable, that by the time Gou managed to find her keys at the bottom of her handbag, they had already reached the front porch.

She was being unreasonable, but she did not want to leave him, not after they had been apart for so long, and alcohol or not, was overwhelmed by an uncontrollable bout of irrationality when Haru left her on the doorstep without as much as a kiss goodnight.

"H-Haruka-senpai!" she called when he was halfway down the drive.

He turned to her, features hopeful.

"That place...where you took that photograph of me," she stammered. "Can...can you take me there?"

* * *

The photograph was taken at her grandparent's house, a large estate in the seaside town of Iwatobi where Haruka had also grown up.

Haru explained during the drive, that Gou had inherited the property when her grandmother decided to downsize into, more manageable accommodation.

Gou had many fond memories of her visits as a child, spending whole summers playing in the vast gardens and watching Rin learn how to swim in the outdoor pool.

It was the perfect marital home where they could see themselves living and raising their own children, so when they finalised their marriage, he and Gou pooled in all of their savings and began to make the place their own.

The house had not changed when they had first moved in, he said, still with the same, worn carpet, outdated floral wallpaper and overgrown acres of land.

But Haru had fallen in love with the estate as much as she had. It was a part of her past and they were determined to make it part of their future too.

Gou was so silent as he towed her around the house, showing her their renovations that Haruka had to stop and ask if she were okay.

She spoke as if she were in a daze.

"Why," she swallowed, "didn't you take me here before?"

"Rei recommended you stay close to the hospital where he worked, just in case," Haru explained. Then, he struggled, "And well...we all thought that it would...overwhelm you, a little…"

It did overwhelm her, Gou thought.

It filled her with an overwhelming sense of home.

It all made sense to her now.

More so than their temporary apartment in the city, Gou could easily see herself living there, in fact, she could see both of them living there.

Memory or not, her mind could easily conjure up the image of cooking breakfast in the kitchen, of Haruka's long limbs sprawled over the living room couch, musing over the morning crossword.

They spent every spare moment they had working on this house, Haruka explained.

They had invested a lot of time and money replacing the old ceiling beams and re-scaping the garden. They had completely refurbished the kitchen, fixed the plumbing, redecorated the lounge and the majority of the bedrooms, and though her grandmother's place was now virtually unrecognisable, there was still a lot to be finished.

"What's in there?" Gou had asked, as Haruka lead her past a closed door without any acknowledgement.

He looked at her like she shouldn't have even asked.

"That's the airing cupboard," he answered quickly, though his voice was trained into this usual nonchalant expression that lead her to believe that nothing was amiss. "I wouldn't go in there, it's full of junk right now."

Finally, he brought her to their latest project, the dining room that faced the garden outside, which still smelt like the paint and plastering from their visit months and months ago now.

It had always been her favourite room in the house because it reminded her of the best of her childhood memories: the birthday cakes and Christmas dinners, and the hours spent helping her late grandfather with a thousand piece puzzles on the vast mahogany dining table.

Compelled with a sudden inspiration to restore the room to its former glory, Gou grabbed up a roller brush in her usual can-do attitude and announced that they should finish decorating this room whilst they're here.

Haru sized her up, his gaze roaming right down to her toes.

He raised a brow at her pretty dress that she had spent more time deliberating over than she was willing to admit.

"Don't you want to get changed?" he said.

Gou blanched at his robotic delivery, only realising then that she was holding out for a compliment.

"I–I didn't bring a change of clothes," she recovered lamely.

Haru paused, appearing contemplative.

After a minute, he stated simply: "You have some clothes upstairs."

Soon, Gou was clad in a t-shirt and a pair of unflattering old jogging bottoms with no idea how she was all of a sudden spending her Saturday afternoon redecorating.

But it didn't matter, of course, because she was spending time with Haru, silently working away to the sound of the radio blaring through iPhone speakers and she wondered: how she could have once hated the silence between them when now, it felt like the most natural thing in the world?

Almost four hours passed when Haru and Gou took a step back to admire their handiwork.

By now, the sun had set, and it was over an hours drive back to the city.

Haru handed her a much-needed half-cup of tea whilst she sat at the breakfast counter, watching him put together a snack.

"It's getting late," Gou spoke without consequence.

Haru's reply was automatic.

"Yes, I'll take you home soon."

Gou dealt him a sideways glance, before training her eyes to the skyline through the kitchen window, her small mouth compressing into a straight line.

Haru knew that look because he had seen it many times before – usually when he said the wrong thing or nothing at all – or worse, that time when he was supposed to say "no, sweetheart, you don't look fat in those jeans."

"Or we could stay here?" Haru suggested, after a silent minute. "We...you have everything you need upstairs," and an executive decision was made.

The gravity between them shifted, as noticeable as the day turning into night.

Barefoot and clad in nothing but a towel, Gou crept into the master bedroom where Haru had said that her spare clothes were kept.

He had been using the en suite shower whilst she used the main bathroom, so she tapped lightly on the open door before she entered, only to find him asleep on the bed with his hair still dripping wet and a white towel tied around his waist.

Gou remembered the decorating they had did, all furniture they had moved around – and with Haruka insisting on doing the bulk of it – and realised just how exhausted he must have been from their day's activities.

But he didn't look tired, she mused: his breathing was relaxed and even.

Even the expression impressed across his face as he slept showed nothing else but complete and utter contentment.

Gou smiled to herself.

She always thought he was the most handsome when he wasn't frowning.

The mattress sunk with her slight weight as she crossed the large bed to join him.

She hovered over him on her hands and knees to study his sleeping face, touching his lips with her fingertips before she dared to lower her own down onto them.

A drop of water from her bangs fell onto his cheek and his eyes snapped open immediately.

She would have launched herself across the room if it wasn't for his hands that secured her position at her waist.

"Kou…?" he said, sleepily.

"I was just–I didn't mean–"

Haru smiled lazily at her, his grip relaxing.

"Then I'm disappointed," he said.

Taking her with him, Haru rolled onto his side, removing her from what she belatedly realised was a very compromising a position.

He turned to face her instead, his temple rested on his bicep, and in registering their close proximity, Gou became painfully aware of the fact that this was – from what she could remember – the first time they had been in a bed together.

"Don't worry. I'm not going to do anything," Haru said in a smooth, sleepy tenor. "Considering what happened last time…"

But as he spoke, he traced the line of her waist with his free hand: following the curve of her hips and thighs: his touch searing even through the thick towel secured around her.

She shuddered and he stopped.

"...No," he completed abruptly. "You will have to want it."

His hands left her far too soon and Gou let out a lungful of air, not even realising that she was holding her breath.

"That being said, I have to remove myself from any tempting situations," he continued a little too lightheartedly, and with a chaste kiss on her forehead, picked himself up off the bed and took a seat at the window ledge positioned on the opposite side of the room.

He scrubbed a towel through his hair, eyeing her form before averting his stare to the corner of the room and Gou could safely say that she had never seen anyone look more depraved.

Gou straightened up to face him, her limbs like jelly and ruefully conscious of the internal upheaval that resulted only from being in Haru's radius.

Carefully, she tread towards him, clutching at her towel all the while and painfully aware of her appearance simply by the way Haru's eyes seemed to drink in every inch of her skin that he could see.

She stopped in front of him and he looked up at her; his cool gaze meeting hers calmly before indulgently scanning the length of her body – drifting south from her face, sizing her up.

The gaze he gave the towel tucked around her chest was as if he expected it to drop without command.

She adjusted her grip and he cocked his head to the side, daring her curiosity.

"Haru, I…"

She lifted her lashes slowly, eyes clashing with glittering blue.

It was a gaze that was so inviting that it felt like she was falling into a whole different universe, too vast and too divine to comprehend.

She couldn't help but kiss him then – somehow hesitant but insistent all at the same time.

She kissed him hard like he had done that time in the kitchen – hard, urgent and with everything she had – wondering all the while if he liked it, was it the same as before, was she everything that he remembered?

Gou frowned.

It wasn't fair, having to compete against herself.

It didn't help that Haru was being cautious, largely unresponsive given how she had reacted when he had kissed her before.

Even though she felt the slight pressure from his lips on hers, he wasn't reacting like she had hoped as she kissed him deeper, straddling his lap so that her legs fell on either side of his; her hands braced on his shoulders whilst his stayed planted on either side of the seat.

In her frenzy, the towel had fallen and rucked around her hips and she hadn't realised until she followed Haru's wandering gaze and grabbing his wrists, urged him to cover them back up with his hands.

"Haru," she whimpered. "Please..."

She heard the catch of his breath, a moment before he devoured her mouth with the hot, hard heat of his own.

With one arm secured around his waist, the other reached took fistfuls of her hair in his between his fingers, tilting her head up to his and crushing her chest against his, and finally, Gou got what she wanted.

His tongue flickered past her lips and her hips rocked against him to rhythm completely unknown to her.

With shameless impatience, Gou reached down the space between them and watched him moan and his head tilt backwards with the focus in his eyes.

He was long, thick and hard enough for her to wrap both of her hands around him; her touch eliciting the most incredible reaction from him that made her quiver as if she could also feel his pleasure.

Feeling bold, she ran her thumb over the tip of him and watched his jaw muscles flex underneath his skin.

He swore under his breath and she was left in awe of the way that he reacted to her – even the look he gave her behind hooded eyes left her breathless and totally dispossessed of all rational thought.

Placing his palms underneath her thighs, Haru stood upright and lifted her up with him, muffling her yelp of surprise with his mouth on hers.

Still in a tight lip lock, he moved them across the threshold of the room and lay her down on the bed, giving her only a second to regain her composure before he came over her on his hands and knees and kissed her with intent to consume.

She should have been embarrassed, overly conscious of her nudity, but as he ran his knuckles down her bare stomach, all she could think about was how she wanted him closer – until he was as close as he could possibly be.

Already, her nails were digging half crescent moon shapes into the tops of his shoulders as his fingers travelled down further, spreading and skimming where she most needed to be touched the most, but denying her the intimacy for long enough to drive her out of her mind.

Every inch of skin he caressed, kissed and licked, pulsed and tightened over her bones before finally, he pressed her back on the bed and took her mouth and she could taste herself on his lips.

He pushed himself inside her, so fast it knocked the air out of her lungs.

She must have gasped loudly with the movement because he breathed with barely concealed restraint: "Did I hurt you?"

Gou shook her head negative.

He was, in fact, a startlingly perfect fit.

"I'm sorry," Haru apologised nonetheless, though there was a playful curve to his lips as he explained: "I couldn't wait."

His movements slowed, mingling somewhere between the lines of pleasure and torture, the sensation new enough to shock and send her heart thumping under the command of a whole new experience that for some reason felt like coming home.

Haru knew exactly how to push her buttons. The sensitive spots behind her ears and the long dragged out kisses on her lips, her neck, the inside of her thighs – his touch everything like a lovers should be, familiar yet exciting and just enough to drive her over the edge with an insatiable need that burned throughout her entire body.

She could not remember wanting anyone more; thinking anyone looked and felt more magnificent as he did when watching the way his arms flexed and his abdominal muscles rippled as he ground his hips into hers.

Their bodies seemed to rush towards each other with increasing urgency.

She could feel her hips moving on their own accord, rising to welcome every thrust, and she could hear his harsh breath mingling with the broken syllables of her name, building up until they cried out in unison and he collapsed on top of her, spent: a welcome weight on her heart.

Catching his breath, Haru pulled away from her, drawing one last, languorous kiss from her lips before drawing their bodies close once more.

"What do you think?" he said against the base of her neck. "Remember me yet?"

Gou pressed her lips against his damp shoulder, unable to stop herself from smiling.

"No," she said. "But we can keep trying?"


	3. Future

* * *

They lay in the water that filled the bathtub, her back against his chest and his knees, bent up either side of hers.

Gou had now permanently moved into the estate, ordering around the contractors who they hired to finish off the last of the refurbishment, with Haru only leaving her side to settle the lease with their apartment in town.

They were closer than ever and at that moment, she could not think of anything else in the world she would want but this.

Except, maybe…

"...Haru?"

His reply was sleepy, content, and muffled against the back of her neck.

"Hmm?"

She laughed, tilting her head so that her forehead tucked gently under his chin.

"...Don't you think this is an awfully huge house, for just two people?"

* * *

Gou could not believe that she was his wife: that she had more of him than any other woman had ever had, and he the same to her.

The more time they spent living on the estate, the more surprised she became of how easy it was – being his wife – how comfortable she came to behave like a married couple, rearranging her thoughts in terms of "we," "us" and "ours" and their future together.

Haru was delighted, of course.

Even though Gou had still not recovered her memories, it was almost as if she had never lost them.

It was enough that she was curious, that she asked questions about them that he could answer them without restraint.

Their friends and family were both surprised and at the same time not at the development; her mother least of all commenting that she was glad that Gou had "finally snapped out of it," insinuating that she had willingly chosen to forget the wonderful man that was her husband, Nanase Haruka.

The only time her amnesia really bothered her these days was thinking of all the lost time she had wasted pushing him away and keeping them apart.

So, in light of this, Gou was inspired to create new memories with Haru: ones that she was sure were better than the last because she knew first hand how quickly life could change before you even knew it.

And because of this revelation, she could not wait to start a family with him.

"I feel like you're just using me for sex," he had said, out of breath whilst still inside of her, though it was hardly a complaint.

It was their honeymoon period all over again, where several nights and even days were spent rediscovering her body with someone who knew it better than she did.

After each time, she would curl up under his arm and ask if he thought they made a girl or a boy, and each time Haru would say that he hoped that it was a little girl who looked just like her.

Gou would smile, silently keeping it to herself that she wished for a baby boy with Haruka's eyes.

The seasons changed without a care in the world and the warming weather had her husband visiting the beach almost every day, situated just less than five minutes away across the pier.

It would never fail to amaze her how the man could be out of his clothes in a matter of seconds once in line of sight with the ocean – admittedly a skill no one else but Gou could provoke – so she had long given up accompanying him on his daily excursions.

It was like any other Tuesday afternoon: the contractors were in and ridding the bedrooms from the unwanted furniture, and Haru had left for the beach in the morning.

She had gone into town when he left, a short bus ride and walk through cobbled streets, in search for a boutique nursery store that she had spotted on her last trip with Haru (who veered her away, probably because he was reluctant to be seen in such establishments).

Gou had already chosen the bedroom that was to be their child's, and even though it was still incredibly premature, she could not help but window shop for a little "inspiration."

The store was quiet like a child's nursery should be. Even the bell that hung above the door was a gentle, heavenly chime that alerted the staff to her attention.

"Ah, it's you!" the girl behind the counter called, to her surprise.

Gou looked around the empty store, before pointing at herself and mouthing, "me?"

Ignoring her obvious confusion, the girl crossed the store floor to greet her.

"I'm so glad you came!"

She was young, pretty and a high schooler, Gou figured, by her over-excitement and the braces on her teeth.

"I was hoping you'd come back before we sold it to someone else," she continued, leading her through the store by the wrist. "I just remembered that you loved it so much and we finally got one in blue, like you wanted so–"

The girl's rant was cut short when an older lady who she believed to be her manager, cut between their linked arms and apologised to Gou profoundly for her part-timers brazen attitude, insisting above all else, that she had mistaken Gou for someone else.

Immediately, the young girl served a fumbled bow and greeted her as if she had completely reset the situation by asking if she needed help finding anything.

When Gou got home that afternoon, she attributed the stirring in her stomach to be hunger and headed to the kitchen to make lunch.

The exchange at the shop was odd, but she figured she might have visited before she had lost her memories, if she was anything like the lovesick puppy she was now.

There were still many things she did not know and she would simply have to ask Haru about it when he got home – promptly deciding to forget about what happened at the store until he arrived.

Even so, her sandwich was left unattended as she stared out into the garden, absentmindedly swivelling her wedding ring on her finger – before the staggering sound of something heavy falling down the stairs interrupted her train of thought.

She heard one of the movers curse at the other as she went to investigate, finding the two overall clad men standing over the large dressing table that had been living in storage in one of the empty bedrooms.

The drawers had spilt its entire contents onto the hallway floor, thankfully nothing of much significance: just a few spare buttons, discarded bank statements, loose change and other mismatch objects that one is inclined to keep but with no real place to put them.

"Sorry about the mess," one of the movers spoke with a thick, country accent. "We'll sort it out for ya – hey, is everything alright, ma'am?"

Her body had reacted before her mind could catch up.

Her muscles had seized and her throat constricted.

Her face had paled and her mouth could not produce a single sound in response to the worried looks her employees were giving her at that moment.

All she could focus on was the photograph on the floor by her toes, clearly intended to be hidden out of her sight: the glossy paper that had caught her attention in the sunlight revealing a grainy image of a little peanut shaped figure with a little head even tinier hands.

Wordlessly, she made her way up the stairs, her stomach clenched tight with nausea and her breath rasping in her throat.

Arriving at the landing, her eyes darted to the room at the end of the hall:

The airing cupboard.

The old lock gave way easily and stumbling through the door, took Gou only a moment for her eyes came to focus, as did the fragments of her forgotten memories.

The sickness and excitement, the appointments and the tests, all came back to her at once in a tunnel of snapshot images, somehow so fast but without a single detail omitted.

She remembered telling her friends, her mother and finally her brother the news, and having to physically restrain Rin from slaughtering Haru on the spot.

She remembered spending mornings with her head in a toilet bowl and banning Haru from eating mackerel in her presence, and laughing when he attempted to talk to her stomach in a silly voice.

She remembered pouring over first-time pregnancy books, attending pre-natal yoga classes, and spending hours picking the perfect shade of blue for the nursery.

She remembered painting the room herself, with Haru standing over her, one hand supporting her by the bump and the other helping her reach to the far corners of the wall.

Her vision seemed to blur at the edges when she looked around the small room now.

It still smelt of faintly of paint, pale blue lined with white pastel dolphins that Haru spent hours stencilling in himself.

He had shared her excitement, _"you're spoiling this boy before it's even been born!"_ she had said: and then the sickening image of her accident came to mind, unsure if it were a memory or a figure of her imagination because as soon as the car came to a jolting stop, Gou's perception was thrown from her body as she watched her own figure behind the wheel.

She watched as the car behind made impact, watched as she was thrown from her seat, and instead of protecting her head from the shattering windshield – watched her arms moved to curl over her stomach instead.

Her legs gave way with the weight of the realisation.

She fell to her knees, and screamed.

* * *

_"Revolutionary? I could take a better photograph on my phone with an Instagram filter!"_

Haru leant his elbow on his desk, his cheek rested against his knuckles.

He wasn't staring at anything in particular – even the emails in his inbox and the deadlines on his calendar could not get his mind off of that girl who barged into his exhibit the other day.

_"It's just so pretentious – what's so great about them?"_ she had said, and his eyes creased into a smile.

He didn't quite get her name or even how she managed to find her way into his exhibit, but Haru recognised the uniform she was wearing – she was a nurse at the specialist athletics clinic he had frequented in his swimming days.

She was ordinary to look at first, until you noticed the little things like the shape of her mouth and the length of her lashes, and how she made the act of tying her hair look like a choreographed dance.

The way she looked at his photographs and the way she looked at him made Haru wonder what it was like to see the world through her eyes.

He leant back in his chair thoughtfully, fabricating a torn ligament or dislocated shoulder with reason to see her.

She had been the first person to criticise his work and therefore, the first person he had been interested in for a while.

For some reason, he wanted her to like his photographs, and because of this, he was sure he would meet her again someday.

He just didn't know it would be like this.

_"Gou, this is Haru,"_ Rin introduced them both. _"My photographer friend – you know, for the wedding."_

* * *

Nanase Haruka could not fake emotions like other people could, so his dislike for Gou was as outright as a slap in the face.

He avoided her like the plague: largely governing all conversation through Rin and even in her presence, would ignore her as if she wasn't there – once actually turning tail and running in the opposite direction before she could strike up a proper conversation.

He was rude, standoffish and maybe even a little arrogant, so Gou had no idea why she wanted him to like her so much.

She just wanted to get to know him, especially when they were going to be working together on one of the most important days of her life, but more so because her brother always spoke of Haru so fondly – or as fondly as guys do – where 'fondness' is one in the same with 'mutual respect,' though she did get the impression that Rin never really fully forgave the boy for giving up competitive swimming.

When she found out that he lived somewhat on route home from work, she decided to stop by one evening and try to make amends.

Haru was living at his parent's old place in Iwatobi, after having studied and lived in Tokyo for a few years. Rin told her that he was currently trying to sell it to buy an apartment closer to his studio in town, but the standalone country house with its picket fence and traditional Japanese patio suited his reclusive personality, Gou thought to herself.

Letting herself through the front gate, she gasped as she caught sight of the boy in the front garden, dealing dishes of milk and cat food out for the strays before she could mentally prepare herself.

_"Nanase-san!"_ she called out, probably in surprise, and the cats dispersed in all directions.

He straightened up to face her without greeting, his stance not in the least bit welcoming at all.

_"I was just on my way home and I was passing by and I…"_ she faltered under his questioning stare, _"I thought that we could...catch up."_

She could not hold his gaze for longer than five seconds so instead, she peered behind him, at the slightly ajar front door with the slither of yellow light from his hallway seeping onto the porch.

_"Can I come in?"_ she prompted.

Haru looked from her to the door, and then shook his head, more to himself than anyone else.

_"Probably not a good idea,"_ he finally spoke.

Taken aback and not quite sure how to proceed, Gou decided to get straight to the point:

_"Are you still mad about what I said at your exhibit?"_ she said with an air of waning impatience. _"I am sorry, but I've apologised a thousand times already!"_

There was a slight twitch in the curve of his lips, a flash of a dimple in his cheek that she had never noticed before now. It disappeared before she can commit it to memory, but it was enough encouragement that one day, even she could make Nanase Haruka smile.

_"Can we put that behind us?"_ she pleaded with puppy eyes. _"Can we at least try to be friends?"_

It was a cold evening, but Gou was sweltering in her uniform as she waited for his response.

Haruka seemed to stare past her, thinking over her proposal with intense consideration.

She added, after a beat:

_"I mean – just whilst we're working on the wedding together..."_

With a little reluctance, he nodded – slowly, as if he were already regretting his decision.

Determined to prove him wrong in all that he thought of her, Gou thanked him profusely and took her leave with a bid goodnight, somehow knowing that lingering beyond her welcome would make him dislike her even more.

_"Are you walking home? On your own?"_ he spoke, all of a sudden. _"At this hour?"_

She looked down at her watch. It was a few minutes past nine but she knew that he could not possibly be concerned about her safety.

Gou waved her hands in front of her in dismissal, _"it's not that far, maybe fifteen min–"_

Without a word, Haruka turned and stormed inside his house before she could finish, slamming the door behind him for effect.

Gou was literally floored by his rudeness, almost deciding he was not worth her time after all, if he had not then returned a second later, clad in a jacket and a pair of running shoes and locking the door behind him.

He took her by the wrist and lead her down the drive.

_"Let me walk you home,"_ he said.

That night, Matsuoka Gou finally she got to see that side of Nanase Haruka that her brother was so fond of – his mysterious but caring soul.

Rin said he was the kind of guy that would go out of his way to help an old lady cross the street; who would feed the stray cats in the neighbourhood – the kind of guy who would never let a girl walk home on her own at night.

She smiled down at the hand wrapped around her wrist and hoped that she would see this side of him again soon.

* * *

As wedding preparations went underway, Nanase Haruka was as much of a presence in the Matsuoka household as their adult children.

It wasn't abnormal for Haru to be around for dinner, and for Gou to be alone with the boy whilst waiting for Rin and her mother to get home from work.

One evening, the duo were relaxing on the couch with the TV on half watched, her feet tucked under his thighs whilst she absentmindedly flicked through the photos on his digital camera.

Gou frowned, _"why are there so many of me?"_

_"Practice for the wedding,"_ Haru stated simply.

He peered over, just in time to see Gou delete a snap he had taken of her when they had visited a florist to sample the flower arrangements. He had liked the way the array of leaves and petals brought out her hair and the patterns on her dress.

He reached for the camera and she jerked back, defiantly moving it out of his reach.

_"What are you doing?"_ he asked, making another grab when she deleted yet another picture.

_"These are horrible, Haruka-senpai!"_

Without thinking, he lunged across the couch before she wiped his entire memory card, and soon they were wrestling like children: in a tangle of arms and elbows as Haru yelled at her for carelessly waving around what was a very expensive piece of equipment.

It wasn't long before his size and strength had her under him, pinned to the couch by the wrists and the welcome weight of his hips pressing into hers.

In a span of a breath, they froze.

Gou inhaled with the belated realisation and caught a scent of the laundry detergent and aftershave on his cotton shirt.

He was looking down at her with the most curious expression, his eyes all the more amazing up close.

They were kind of blue that people wrote songs about, likening the hues to the oceans, the stars and clear skies: the kind of eyes that she could get lost in for days.

Unconsciously, she licked her own lips and his pupils darted to her mouth.

_"Kou…"_ he said with a warning in his tone and briefly, she closed her eyes, her insides melting when he called her by the name that she liked.

Haru took advantage of her momentary lapse, just long enough to snatch the camera from her hands.

He pulled himself away from her and parked himself as far away as he could on that small couch, prompting Gou to also sit upright with her feet on the floor and her hands on her lap like a guest.

_"Sorry,"_ she whispered meekly.

_"It's ok."_

But it wasn't.

Haru chanced a glance at her and pushed the hair out of his eyes.

They were dark and poised on her with a stare so intimate, she could feel the goosebumps rise on every inch of skin that he tracked.

She knew from that moment that he wanted her – and the most worrying part of all was how her trembling hands wanted to reach out and touch him too.

* * *

It was a mistake they knew was going to happen, long before that evening sat sharing take-away on the bare wooden floor of Haru's studio.

It was the weekend Rin and Seijuro were out of town for his bachelor party. Gou had complained about being "abandoned" by her brother and financé and being "a terrible cook," so Haru invited the girl over after work, kidding himself with reason that he could not possibly let his best friend's little sister go hungry in his absence.

They had been alone together before, but not alone like this: the silences between them no longer comfortable but strung out over long minutes – both afraid to speak as if they already knew that life as they had known it had come to an end.

_"Kou."_

His gaze flickered down to her lips, pouted and inviting, and then she was thrown by the full velocity of his bright blue eyes meeting hers, his stare only a little more breathtaking than his next few words.

_"Tell me to stop."_

A part of her wanted to, the part that knew that it was wrong, that her being here with him of all people, was wrong.

But her mouth couldn't even form the word no matter how hard she willed it.

_"You're getting married. In two months,"_ he added sternly, a fact that they both knew but were beginning to longer care for.

_"But you said..."_ Gou breathed, closing the space between their foreheads.

Her touch travelled up the length of his neck and smoothed over the hair on the back of his head.

His lips were already touching hers.

_"I said what?"_

* * *

It was an awfully serious race for a public swimming pool – but one so close that they had formed a small audience by the time their hands slapped against the wall of the pool, milliseconds apart.

The victor was Rin, who celebrated like he was a teenager: splashing about and yelling _"in your face!"_ at Haru whilst he caught his breath.

Haru smiled, despite himself.

Winning meant a lot more to Rin, but it didn't mean that he would go easy on him.

As if it were the most natural thing in the world, Haru hauled himself out of the pool and reached for his phone, sitting on top of the pile of towels and clothes inside his sports bag.

Rin watched curiously as he opened a message, read it and frowned.

**SMS Message from: Matsuoka Gou:** I can't tonight. Have plans with Seijuro and his parents.

_"You have your phone on you a lot lately,"_ Rin commented, casually scrubbing a towel through his hair.

His response was typical of Haru: indifferent, if not for the slight stiffening of his shoulders and the way he snapped his phone shut before Rin could catch a glimpse.

_"What's that supposed to mean?"_

He knew very well what that meant.

Nanase Haruka had the technophobia of man more than twice his age and was notorious amongst their friends for disappearing off the face of the earth whenever he let his phone run out of battery.

He was stubborn like that, and because of this stubbornness, Rin was well aware that he wouldn't get a straight answer.

He decided on a more direct approach:

_"Is there something wrong? Something stressing you out?"_

His phone vibrated in his palm once more and Haru chanced a glance at the preview of the message that blinked up on the screen.

**SMS Message from: Matsuoka Gou:** I'm sorry. I miss you so much. I can't stop thinking about the other night when–

_"–Is it work? Is the wedding getting in the way?"_ Rin spoke before he could get a word in edgeways. _"I'm sorry for dragging you into it. I know how demanding Gou can be sometimes…"_

Haru smirked because oh, he did know.

And my god, he interpreted in a completely different way.

He physically shook of his head of his thoughts and tossed his phone back into his sports bag in a demonstration of indifference.

_"It's nothing,"_ Haru insisted. _"I'm just..."_

_"What?"_

_"Frustrated, I guess."_

_"Frustrated?"_ Rin repeated. _"Frustrated with what–?"_

His sentence caught as he watched Haru sigh through gritted teeth and massage an imaginary knot on the back on his neck.

Rin dealt him knowing look and clapped the poor boy on the back.

He had the pleasure of meeting his latest conquest the other week, a tall, stunning blonde with more good looks than sense, but Rin got the impression that the girl's eyes wandered as much as Haru's did.

He chuckled to himself, shaking his head.

_"I get it, I get it,"_ he laughed, not really getting it at all. _"If you don't mind a piece of advice, Nanase: call that pretty model girlfriend of yours and tell her to hurry back from Paris before your pants explode."_

* * *

_"Tell me about him."_

He was feeling spiteful.

Maybe because he knew deep down that he was a bad person, but wanted to remind her that so was she.

But mostly because there was nothing he hated more than watching her leave, even though he had begged her to stay the night.

_"What could you possibly want to know about Seijuuro?"_

Haru frowned at her slim back as she turned to fix her hair in the mirror.

_"I want to know why you started dating him,"_ he stated defiantly. _"Why you fell in love with him. Why you agreed to marry him."_

Gou sent his reflection a pained look.

Makoto and Nagisa always said that Haru was more talkative after a couple of drinks.

She could tell he stopped at a bar after work for a beer or six, by the way his texts were slurred like spoken words and his lips tasted like that last shot of tequila he knocked back just before she arrived.

_"Surely, you won't want to know that?"_

_"Yet, here I am,"_ Haru spread his arms, a gesture of self-deprecation. _"Riveted by every gory detail."_

They both knew this time would come eventually, but over a month down the line, neither of them really knew what they were doing – if whatever it was between them was lust, something deeper, or something in between that neither of them could really comprehend.

But amidst all their uncertainty: they knew what they were doing was wrong.

There were times when Gou would be so inconsolable with the guilt that next time she sought him out, Haru would be reluctant to see her again – but this was the first time he ever spoke out about his own frustrations.

Haru scoffed in her silence: _"He can't be all that, if you're here with me."_

_"You don't know him like I do."_

_"Then what is it then? Why are you here?"_

_"Haru–"_

_"–Are you just bored?"_ his voice was teetering on threatening. _"Am I that one last bout of rebellion before you settle down? Or did you just want to know what it was like to fuck someone famous?"_

Finally, her head of red hair spun to face him and Haru regretted his words the second he saw the moisture in the corner of her eyes.

Unwittingly, Gou's mind conjured up an angry flashback of the tall, blonde model Haru had the audacity to bring to brunch with her brother the last week – with her spider-like legs and exotic colouring, and her inability to laugh without throwing her head back in an exaggerated, glossy wave of shampoo-advert hair.

_"Don't get me mixed up with one of your other girlfriends, Haru,"_ she spat.

Snatching up her things, Gou bolted for the door and pulling on her shoes, felt weakened by the devastating second when she did not think that he would follow her this time.

But sure enough, Haru pulled her to him – and her back collided with his broad chest.

_"Don't talk like that," he said. "You know there isn't anyone else."_

* * *

_"We want the theme to be: summer!"_

Haru's expression was deadpan.

_"How inspired."_

No one could blame his foul mood that morning.

Less than 12 hours ago, the woman he loved was in his bed, sobbing with satisfaction in his arms and now here he was: taking her engagement photos with another man.

It was nowhere near beach weather, but the skies were clear and the pier was empty enough for the couple to have an uninterrupted photoshoot where they could embrace in the sunset and draw sickening "Sei x Gou ~ save the date!" messages in the sand.

It was hell for him, but no matter how hard he tried – Haruka could not bring himself to hate Mikoshiba Seijuro.

Even when he wrapped an arm around his fiancée's shoulders and pulled her to his side, Haru begrudgingly admitted that they were a handsome match – but not as good as he was with her, of course.

It was Gou he despised at that moment: the way she cooed and smiled up at Seijuro as if he wasn't there made his blood boil and his vision turn red.

His eyes narrowed.

How could she act this way in front of him? Did she not care?

If not for Makoto lending a helping hand with the lighting, he would have lost it and no one would have blamed him, having been subjected to the most awkward third wheel situation if the century.

Later that week, Haru arrived at the Matsuoka household before the siblings arrived.

He was welcomed inside by their mother who was so keen to see the developed photographs from the shoot, she would not wait until her daughter got home from work.

Pouring over the images fanned over the dining room table, she picked out a picture of her daughter, one that Haru had taken between the shoots.

It was one of Haru's favourites – a candid snap of Gou where the light from the sunset peeked over the crown of her head like a halo.

Her eyes were fixed over the camera lens to the person behind it.

_"I like this one of Gou,"_ she smiled knowingly at Haru. _"She looks very in love here."_

* * *

The rehearsal dinner marked a week until the wedding day, and though Haru and his camera had been invited to the event: now was not the time to be taking any fucking pictures.

He was never the kind to be comfortable around large crowds of people, but it was all the more evident tonight, scowling every time someone approached him to ask: "so how you do know the lovely couple?"

Unable to handle another toast, another chorus of applause, Haru took to the french doors that opened onto the balcony, framed by billowing curtains that warned him of the cold, spring temperature outside and knew that out there, he could catch a moment alone.

Filling his lungs with the evening breeze, he rested his elbows on the marble railings and looked broodingly out into the night.

_"Haruka-senpai,"_ a voice sounded behind him, all too soon.

The balcony was dark and Gou was at least a metre away behind him, but Haru could map the profile of her face, the exact expression she would be wearing when he turned to her just by the tiniest inflexion in her voice.

She wore her hair in a bridal chignon, the pinned curls studded with tiny white rosebuds that matched the lace white summer dress that did nothing to shield her from the biting spring breeze of that evening.

Gou always sucked on her bottom lip when she was worried, and wrung her wrists with her hands when she was cold.

He would hold them in his own like tiny, fragile birds and press his thumbs into the dent where he could feel her pulse, wondering how in the world he could love the feeling of someone else's heartbeat so much.

_"What are you doing out here?"_ she asked.

As if it was her answer, Gou watched as he pulled a cigarette and lighter from his blazer pocket.

He released a cloud of smoke in her direction, an act of defiance seeing as he knew very well how much she hated the habit.

She waved a hand in front of her face, _"I thought you were giving up?"_

Haru took another drag, eyeing her curiously before averting his gaze: _"I will, eventually."_

Silence reigned between them, and unable to conjure up an appropriate response, Gou found herself watching the ashey flame of Haru's cigarette dim and brighten, illuminating his handsome features.

Drawing in a deep breath that was supposed to be steadying, Gou joined him by the railings.

She steadied herself on the freezing marble stone, attempting to absorb its hardness so that she would not break with the words that were on the tip of her tongue.

_"I know what you're thinking, but–"_ she spoke. _"–I need...some more time."_

Haru plucked the cigarette from his lips and abruptly threw it over the balcony onto the garden below.

She flinched at his every movement, feeling his frustration as acutely as her own.

He shoved his fists into his pockets and set his jaw against the innately violent reaction that followed her noncommittal statement.

_"To do what?"_ he asked, after a minute.

Gou shrunk into her shoulders; _"to...to think."_

He let out a breath of strained disbelief.

_"Surely, you must know what you want by now."_

At that moment, Haru would not believe her, but she did know.

Gou knew what she wanted, long before this evening and before even Haru knew himself: but she had let things go too far and before she knew it, there seemed to be no way out.

The main problem was that Gou was a people pleaser – years of trying to win over her brother's affections taught her to be like that, and as the wedding drew close, her mind was occupied with the hundreds of invitations she would have to take back, the money already spent and the disappointment of her fiancé and her future in-laws whose only crime was being too nice that she could not bear to let them all down.

_"I–I don't know what you want me to say–"_

_"–I don't know what you want me to do!"_

Gou halved the distance between them.

If she could hug him, kiss him, at least hold his face in her hands, she could assure him that she loved him and that somehow, everything was going to work out.

He must have been thinking the same thing when he ran his fingers through his hair as if to find do something with them.

_"Things...me and you…"_ he whispered. _"It's...it's gone too far for me to up and leave and forget about it all, even though I know it's the right thing to do…"_

He looked at her then, a hand inching towards her face and passing tantalisingly close to her chin before falling back to his side.

Her heart lurched rebelliously, leaping towards him.

_"I love you, Matsuoka Kou,"_ he said. _"You should be marrying me instead."_

* * *

Haru heard her halfway up the drive, a bloodcurdling noise triggering something like instinct as he discarded his bag and towel on the gravelled driveway and sprinted into the house to find her, mind screaming all the way:

If only I hadn't gone to the beach today.

If I had just come home a little earlier.

He caught sight of the picture of the sonogram on the hallway floor and sure enough, found Gou in the middle of the abandoned nursery, her head in her hands and her sobs convulsing from her stomach to her shoulders.

Helplessness overcame him, as did the crippling realisation that there was nothing he could say or do to make pain go away.

All he could do was hold her close and wrap his arms around her crumpled form.

"Haru..." she looked up at him with a tear streaked face. "I'm so sorry."

* * *

_"I don't understand why you're telling me this."_

Seijuro stared at his fiancee from across the table that separated them.

He wondered if she had done this on purpose: to tell him in public so that he would not over-react, and at the restaurant where he proposed, no doubt.

Perhaps she thought it was symbolic.

He, on the other hand, thought it pretty savage.

_"You deserve to know,"_ she answered quietly, more to her lap than anyone else. _"And I know it means nothing now, but I am really, really sorry I let this happen."_

He could not hate her, even in that moment.

They had been together long enough to know that she felt awful.

In the final weeks leading up to the big day, where most brides were sampling makeup looks, exercising furiously to rid of those last couple of pounds – Gou had been incredibly aloof and even dismissive whenever the topic of the wedding would come up.

Seijuro had fallen in love with her vibrancy, her cheerfulness that seemed infectious, so he had never known Gou to be anything but.

She had been so excited when he proposed, so eager to start the planning, but now her mind was a million miles away. Sometimes, he would catch her staring into nothing, or lying wide awake at night, the backlight of her phone illuminating her face as if she were waiting for someone to call.

They were brief but conspicuous moments, that Seijuro had put down to nerves. Nothing that he thought to be worried about.

Or so he thought.

_"We're getting married next week,"_ he spoke with disbelief. _"Why are you just telling me this now?"_

If Gou's head ducked any lower, her chin would be touching her chest.

_"I don't know."_

Seijuro stared at her for a long minute, before averting his gaze towards the bustling restaurant.

He had no idea. None at all.

She could have got away with it if she wanted, but she told him the truth, and that surely meant something.

Right?

He took a deep breath, his chest expanding.

_"Fine,"_ he decided. _"I forgive you."_

Her feathery lashes shot up to look at him, pupils shrinking.

_"What?"_

_"If this was just a momentary lapse in judgement...panic about the wedding...hell, I don't know! Maybe one last hurrah before committing yourself to sleeping with one person forever?"_

He lent over the table and took her small hands in his own.

_"I can get past that. I love you and I want to marry you."_

Seijuro stroked her knuckles with his thumb and tried to look her in the eyes, his heartbeat quickening with every passing second because why wasn't she saying it back?

_"You don't love him,"_ he felt sick asking. _"Do you?"_

And Gou began to cry.

He rarely saw her cry, even though Rin claimed she was a crybaby when she was a child.

Her tears were silent, rolling down her cheeks and pooling at her chin and when he tried to wipe them away, she pulled back and wouldn't let him touch her again.

_"Yes, I do,"_ she said, a dagger in his heart. _"I'm sorry. I tried not to, but I'm so in love with him. And there's nothing I can do to make it stop."_

* * *

Gou had never cried so much in her entire life.

Even in those first few weeks when she had initially moved in with Haru, where she had locked herself in her room for days, was nothing compared to the way she cried with so much grief it made her sick.

Rei had her admitted to his hospital for almost a week.

She wasn't eating or sleeping or living, in Haruka's eyes.

He had spent what felt like days in bed holding her, her sobs coming in tides so strong that she was unable to speak: because remembering what was essentially two sets of lives that weaved and intertwined was like torture.

What kind of mother was she, forgetting her own child?

The guilt almost consumed her.

She could not even protect her own baby, and would not listen when Rei told her that there was nothing she could have done.

She remembered everything that happened with Haru and it was like falling in love with him for the third time.

Unfortunately, she also remembered forgetting him, and the way he had reacted that night they had fought and the wretchedness he must have felt being unable to share his grief with his wife at the loss of his unborn child.

He stayed by her hospital bed both day and night, assuring her that everything would be alright if she could just tell him what was wrong.

He was trying his best, but it was the first time in all their years together when Haru was the one doing most of the talking.

He tried to remain as optimistic as he could for the both of them: telling her that they could try for another child, that everything would get better now that she could remember.

But when it got late and when he thought she was asleep, she would overhear him asking Rei if his wife would ever be okay.

"She will," Rei reassured him. "But for now, we'll just have to let time do the healing."

* * *

She would be on her honeymoon by now.

Getting on the flight, at least.

Haru floated in the middle of the outdoor pool of his local gym, deserted because there was only one idiot in town that would be using it in this weather.

He lay on his back, watching a plane cross the sky and wondered if she were on it.

Was it Bali? Or the Maldives? He couldn't remember where she said she was going, because he didn't want to listen.

He told Rin that he would be unavailable to be the photographer for Gou's wedding after the rehearsal dinner. Some bullshit excuse about work commitments that Rin didn't take too well and Haru hadn't spoken or heard from the family since.

He didn't blame them for it. Gou and Rin's father had passed away when she was six – so naturally, Rin had taken on all the responsibility the father of the bride would and freaked out at the task of somehow finding a professional photographer in less than a week's notice.

Gou had not got in touch with him either – and that was enough of an answer for him.

He sold his parents house quickly and moved into a tiny apartment in town. He converted the study into a studio and spent most of his time in the darkroom or in the pool.

Work kept him busy, and swimming got him exhausted enough to sleep.

But even after all his efforts, he thought of her all the time.

He knew he was going crazy: unable to stop himself from imagining her laugh whenever he emerged from the bath in his swimsuit, or conjuring up the image of her on the sofa in front of the TV.

That was why it took a moment for him to realise it was actually her, sitting on his doorstep, waiting for him with a large, red suitcase in tow.

_"Kou?"_

_"Hey,"_ she smiled. _"Remember me?"_

* * *

"So now that you have your memory back – do you remember the name of that album you were gonna lend me?" was the first thing Nagisa said to Gou when he visited.

She hit him around the head, and then pulled him in for a hug.

Just under over week after her readmission, Rei signed her out of the hospital, deciding Gou was better off at home to start rebuilding her life.

As Haru had left his car back at their house in Iwatobi, they had called Makoto to give them a ride, and naturally, Nagisa tagged along.

"So you remember me? You remember everything?" he asked her tearfully, and Gou felt better already.

"Yep. And Rei says I can go home today too."

She smiled at Haru, who was looking on proudly and getting better every day.

It was because she had agreed to see a therapist – a slightly kooky but genius woman named Amakata Miho – who was helping her come to terms with the last couple of months.

She reminded Gou (with a series of random quotes that only sometimes made sense) that she still had so much more to live for, and it was standing right next to her in the form of her loving husband.

"This calls for a celebration!" Nagisa announced and for once, everyone agreed.

"Maybe we should grab a bite to eat on the way back?" Makoto suggested. "Get a few drinks and catch up, maybe invite Zaki-chan and a few of your friends from work?"

"Vod-ka shots, vod-ka shots–!" Nagisa cheered, but before the group could make a move, Rei entered the ward with a clipboard in hand, announcing over the ruckus:

"–there won't be any of that! Gou-chan is not allowed to strain herself, let alone go out drinking with you, Nagisa!"

Predictably, the yellow-haired boy whined and called him a kill-joy, but Haru agreed that she should be taking it easy and suggested taking her home for the night.

"One small drink won't hurt?" Gou nudged her husband playfully, sending pleading eyes at her doctor who simply held her hospital chart up in protest.

"I got your test results back," Rei explained, "and I really don't recommend drinking for a while..."

He looked so serious that the whole room hushed to his attention.

He smiled, and the group stared back at him, confused.

"...Congratulations, Gou-chan. You're pregnant."

* * *

They could hear the surf whisper up onto the shore, an eternal rhythm so soothing and nostalgic.

Their first daughter, a daddy's girl by no fault of her own, had crawled in between herself and Haru in the middle of the night and was fast asleep in his folded arms, her thumb in her mouth and her cheek against his chest.

Gou smiled down at them as she smoothed a hand over her protruding stomach, already tenting another tiny bump through the material of her nightgown.

She looked out towards the beach, beyond their garden, and was unable to recall a more perfect scene in her entire life.

It was the one thing in the world that she would never let herself forget.

* * *


End file.
